Buffy A Vampire Slayer
by Blue Chance
Summary: Post BtVS "Chosen" and AtS "Not Fade Away": They saved the world again and again, you'd think they'd be allowed to rest… you'd think. A new take on the mythical Buffy season 8, complete with Spike, Angel, Buffy and the Scoobies.
1. Act I: Let's Go To Work

**Title:** Buffy A Vampire Slayer

**Author:** Blue Chance

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters, but they're not doing much these days so I didn't think anyone would mind if I played with them for a bit.

**Summary**: Post BtVS "Chosen" and AtS "Not Fade Away": They saved the world again and again, you'd think they'd be allowed to rest… you'd think. A new take on the mythical Buffy season 8.

**Story Dedication: **I hereby dedicate this to the great Joss Whedon. You created these characters that I love. I can only hope to do them the kind of justice they deserve.

**Author's Note:** I've made no secret of my dislike for Buffy as continued in the comics. I was angry about it for a couple of days, but why be angry? You see, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword… but it's also mightier than crap season 8 writing. We deserve something better, I think. I don't know if I'm the person for the job, but I'm certainly equal to the task. I only ask that you forgive the glaring deus ex machina close to the beginning of the story. It was a necessary evil. As for the story itself, I'm scaling it down from where Joss took it. We're going home, guys, and we're bringing the scooby gang with us.

I'm testing the waters with this first installment. If all goes well, I'll be writing a full season complete with character development and a broad story arc. You'll see the beginning of it here already. I know where I want to take these characters since I've had about 7 years to think about it. Feedback would be immensely appreciated, if not _completely_ bloody worshipped.

One last thing that I feel is important to say: The Buffyverse is a house divided. Not brother against brother or father against son, but Spike fans versus Angel fans. I don't think it's any great mystery which side I come down on… but for this enterprise, I'm treating both characters with respect. Angel's just as integral a character to the Buffyverse as Spike, and I'd be remiss if I didn't use him in such a capacity. I'm trying my hardest not to be biased, and am trying to write as closely to the spirit of the show and the original characters as I can get.

I read this aloud to my brother – complete with voices and accents. He said it was like having the show back again, if only for a few minutes. That was probably the best compliment I'd ever gotten for one of my pieces of work. I hope the general consensus agrees.

****...****

**Buffy A Vampire Slayer**

**Season 8, Act I**

"**Let's Go To Work"**

**...**

**MAY 20, 2003**

**10:52 AM**

**Sunnydale, California**

"What are we going to do now?"

The question lingered in the air with so much promise… so much _potential_. Now they knew what they could do with potential. It wasn't just a notion or an idea. It wasn't just dormant and idle… it was kinetic and changing, and sparking in to life all around them. It was real. It was painful, and sometimes… God, sometimes it was so hard, but it was there. The choice. The freedom. The potential to live life to it's fullest. The potential to change the world.

Staring out over the hole in the world that was once Sunnydale, with the winds of change blowing through her hair, and the sun on her face… Buffy smiled.

Later, hours later, when the shock wore off, she would cry.

**May 19, 2004**

**2:03 AM**

**Los Angeles, California**

"Let's go to work!" Angel said with a kind of manic determination as the pouring rain beat down upon him and the last remaining remnants of his team. In the back of his head he knew that this was probably it. The end. Fred was gone. Wes was gone. Gunn was dying. The enemy was numerous, and they were only four. This was suicide… but then, they'd all known that. None of them had planned on surviving this.

Angel swung his weapon wildly, cutting deep in to the first creature that approached him. Then the three behind him did as he had said, and went to work. There was never even a moment of hesitation… not even with Spike and Illyria completely without defense, and Gunn bleeding profusely through a wound they all knew was mortal.

The four of them fought. Waves of demons crashed upon them, and all Angel could think was, did it matter that they were going to die? No. It just mattered that they kept fighting.

"Personally, I prefer this!" Spike yelled from somewhere deep within the tempest. "Going out like a man instead of a jewelry box!"

Angel couldn't help the smile on his face, even as one of the things he was fighting concurrently along with two or three others had shoved something like a talon in to his stomach. He made quick work of ridding it of its head, and went on fighting.

They all did.

And then it happened.

A bright blue flash of light that engulfed the ally… lighting up the night as though it were day. The demons that had been rushing from all directions were all frozen, suspended in time it seemed.

The three men turned to look at the only woman among them, and they all stared wide eyed as Illyria held her arms out wide from her body – the light that surrounded them appearing to be flowing out from her every pore.

Then the light was gone. The demons were gone.

Illyria crumpled to the ground.

Angel was the first to speak.

"What the hell was that?" He asked as Gunn collapsed against some crates in the corner, either because he was relieved and tired or because he was about as close to death as someone could be without actually being dead.

For his part, Spike merely stared at all around him – seeming to be quite dumbfounded as to what had just taken place.

"The last of what I had left in me." Illyria answered Angel's question, and it seemed not without a little difficulty.

"Where did they go?" He asked, searching around. He couldn't believe this. Could it have been that easy?

"Back." She responded. "Back where they came from."

"For how long?"

"Not—"

Suddenly an echoing clapping sound filled the alleyway, followed by an irritating and familiar laugh.

"Well, bravo!" Spike said, gesturing toward the blue form on the ground. "Didn't know Blue had it in her!"

"But this can't be—" Angel started, but was interrupted by Gunn.

"What?" He asked. "A miracle?" He slumped a little more, and Spike's smile disappeared from his face as he went to assess the damage done to his friend. "Because that's what it damn well looks like to me. I'd be clapping, too… If I could feel my arms."

Angel took several steps forward, smelling the air, trying to feel the situation rather than understand it.

"A miracle?" He asked to himself. Okay. A miracle then.

But with how long of a shelf life?

**June 25, 2004**

**Rome, Italy**

**11:20 PM**

Dawn walked slowly through the ancient cemetery, the darkness having become a bit overwhelming in the last hour. Her hand fiddled nervously with the stake at her side as she looked around, wondering why last night – when she had agreed to do this – hadn't been so dark. At least, she didn't recall it being as dark.

"Sure," She said to herself. "I'd love to patrol, Buffy. What could be more fun than freezing to death in the middle of a…" She looked around. "Very creepy graveyard on a Friday night?"

In a way, this felt very familiar. Graveyards. Cold. Dark. She had been used to this before… at home. When things had been a little simpler. Well, no. Things had never been simple, had they? Maybe when she had been a little girl, before Buffy had been called to be a slayer… but Dawn hadn't even existed back then. Not really. So, in actuality – this kind of thing had always been her life.

"Must be my lucky day…" A deep voice growled from behind her. Dawn spun around, not quite startled. The man who stood before her was shorter than she, and skinny. Also, he was covered in dirt – which would have given him away as having just crawled out from his grave and therefore as a vampire even if it hadn't been for the ridges in his forehead and the yellow in his eyes.

Dawn suppressed a smile, as she brought her stake up.

"What? You've been dead for a few hours and already can't tell the difference between night and day?" She asked.

The demon smiled.

"Is that going to matter much when I'm snapping you in half?"

The thing lunged at her, but before it had time to gain any distance – it exploded in to a puff of ash before her eyes.

Buffy stepped out from behind a headstone, stake still raised. Dawn smiled.

"Guess he wasn't so lucky." Buffy said.

"I'd be lying if I said being the bait wasn't fun sometimes," Dawn said as she dusted the ash away from her clothes. Buffy crossed her arms over her chest with a look of amused disbelief in her eyes.

"This coming from the girl who was trying to pawn off bait duty to the new slayer who couldn't even speak English?"

Dawn shrugged.

"I was just trying to help. You know, get her in to the thick of things."

"Right," Buffy said, turning around and walking away. Dawn followed her. "Kind of like when dad pushed us in to the deep end of the pool when we were little."

"Which my paralyzing fear of water has nothing to do with." Dawn said defensively. "Anyway, speaking of English… that was the third vamp this week who spoke it. Any idea why?"

Buffy stopped and looked around.

"Tourists." She said with a frown. "They're easy targets."

"Yeah, but…" She shrugged her shoulders slightly. "Have you noticed all the new vampires in general lately? I mean, not that there ever seemed to be a lack of them before, but…" Buffy took a deep breath.

"I know." She said. "A lot of new vampires being sired lately." She looked down, shaking the stake she held in her hands. Dawn could see that there was something troubling coursing through her head. "I think something's going on."

**Conakry****, Republic of Guinea**

"Something is definitely going on!" Xander exclaimed, holding out an empty box of fruit loops in front of a room full of training slayers. Some of them had the courtesy to glance in his direction, but most of them did not. "Look, there has to be a line drawn in the sand somewhere!" He continued.

The phone rang.

Xander gestured with the box toward the girls who still were not paying him any mind.

"I'm going to answer that, but then we're all going to sit down and have a household meeting about how the word 'personal' doesn't actually mean 'for everyone'."

The eye-patched man shook his head, walking out of the training room and in to a long hallway where the phone hung on a hook on the wall.

"Hello?" He answered, tossing the cereal box aside.

"Xander?" He recognized the voice before it had a chance to tell him who it was.

The man felt a smile creep over his face as he leaned against the wall.

"General Buffy herself?" He asked. "To what do I owe this very unexpected and very welcomed surprise?"

"Well, death. You know."

Xander laughed a little at the irony.

"It's like going home again." He answered her.

"Tell me about it." Buffy said from the other end. "Look, we've noticed something weird going on over here."

"Extra siring-ey action?" He asked.

He could hear Buffy sigh.

"Knew I could count on you."

"You know, I have this fantasy that one day you'll call me just to say you're in town and want to go out for coffee. I call it my coffee-fantasy."

"Does your coffee fantasy include hot chocolate? Not so much a fan of coffee."

Xander frowned.

"Next thing you know you'll be telling me there's no Santa Claus." He said, and then switched gears in the next breath. "Have you talked to Willow?"

"No." She answered. "Her and Kennedy are still in Hawaii. I didn't want to bother them without being sure." She paused. "Are we sure?"

Xander turned so that he could see through the door that led to the training room where the slayers he was responsible for huffed and puffed away. He didn't want them to be sure, he didn't want there to be something bad enough going down that Buffy had to contemplate bringing the scoobies back together, but he had known for a few days now that bad was brewing. He had felt it. His slayers had felt it. He sighed.

"We're sure." He answered.

**Lanai, Hawaiian Islands**

"We're sure." Willow spoke in to her phone. She had been stuffing clothes haphazardly in to a suitcase when it had started to ring. Somehow she knew it was Xander before she even flipped it open. "We've felt something was up for a couple of days now." She switched her phone to her other ear, holding it between her head and shoulder as Kennedy threw her some toiletries to be packed away. "But I wasn't completely sure until an hour ago."

"Why, what happened an hour ago?" Xander asked.

Willow hesitated.

"We had a vision." She answered, a little uncomfortably.

"We?"

"Yeah, Kennedy and me."

"'We' as in, the both of you?"

"Yeah, it… happens sometimes when… during… when things are… when we're connected."

A silent beat.

"Connected." Xander repeated, seeming to think the word over, and then seeming to understand. "Connected! Oh, got it. Say no more. Well, actually… say more, but about the vision, not the connecting."

Willow rolled her eyes a little as she sat on the edge of the bed.

"There was nothing… visible about it." She said. "It was more like a feeling. A sense of knowing something that hasn't happened yet."

"Something bad." Xander said, more than asked.

"Something bad." Willow repeated.

Xander took a deep breath.

"Well, we've dealt with bad before."

Willow's forehead furrowed as Kennedy came to sit beside her, taking her hand in her lap. She looked the younger girl in the eyes, a feeling of cold dread washing over her.

"Xander," She said. "I think this might be worse."

**Rome, Italy**

Buffy lay wide eyed and awake staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. She should have been getting some rest. She knew she had a very long and tedious day ahead of her, but she couldn't sleep. Things had been rough in the past year; she wouldn't deny it to herself. Her and Dawn had to uproot their whole lives to travel across the globe in search of new slayers. New recruits for their army. Mostly the girls accepted their new roles, sometimes they didn't. When they didn't, it was never easy. Those were the hardest days.

Now, something was coming. Something had been coming, and they'd all felt it. Every single one of them… and they'd all been too scared to be the first to say it, the first not to pass it off as anything more than paranoia. These girls, this army, they had trained with vampires and the odd demon here and there, but Buffy was afraid that most of them were unprepared for how bad things could get, and how fast control could slip from their hands.

Some of them knew, of course. Shannon. Rona. Vi. They knew. They'd seen it before. They'd lost friends to it before.

God, this couldn't be happening again. Not so soon. Hadn't they been through enough? Hadn't they changed the world enough? Hadn't they beaten back the bad guys _enough_? She didn't want anyone else to sacrifice their lives to push back against something that was just going to keep coming and coming.

So many people dead… and for what? Did any of it really make a difference? Had giving all the potentials their full strength really made a difference? Or did she just change a lot of girls' lives against their will and without their consent? Would any of them have wanted this if they had had a choice? She knew if someone had come to her when she was fifteen and told her that she could either be a slayer and endure a lifetime's worth of pain and misery every year, or just carry on being a normal person for the rest of her life, she would have chosen to be normal and never thought of it again. No one would choose this. No, it had to be chosen for them.

She'd chosen for them. She'd chosen for all of them.

And now, if this thing was as bad as it seemed, who knew what these girls were going to have to go through.

She had hoped with Spike's death, with Anya's death, with the deaths of all those girls, that her and hers had given up enough for this fight. Too much, even. Far too much.

But that was never the case, was it? The world would ask for everything you had and then when you gave it, it would just ask for more. It would always ask for more. Enough didn't exist, because nothing was ever enough. There would always be wars to be fought, and evil to push back. No one would ever win, but God they would lose.

So much loss…

Buffy closed her eyes tightly and tried not think of that now. She had to try and get some sleep.

That's when her phone rang.

Buffy opened her eyes, and reached for the device.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Buffy."

Buffy's heart skipped a beat as she sat up in her bed, and quickly switched on her lamp.

"Angel?" She said, not asked. She hadn't seen or heard from him for over a year. Andrew had been in L.A. for a couple of days to track down a new slayer… when he came back, he had acted a little strange, but then Andrew _was_ a little strange, so she'd thought nothing about it. He hadn't brought any messages back or any word. Then, about a month ago, she had heard that Wolfram and Hart had taken their operation elsewhere – as in out of Angel's hands, and any number she had known of his had been disconnected. She had been worried, scared for him… but she knew that it was something she had to push out of her mind. Angel could take care of himself, just like she could take care of herself.

But now he was on the phone, and she was sure he wasn't calling just to say hello.

"How are you, Buffy?" He asked, almost awkwardly.

"We know each other better than this." She said. She could almost hear is smirk on the other hand.

"I guess we do." He said.

"But for the record?" Buffy asked. "Letting me know you're not dead every now and then wouldn't be the most unwelcome thing."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Buffy took a deep breath.

"It's bad, Angel." She said.

"I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't."

"That wasn't actually a question."

A beat.

"I know."

Buffy had to smile ironically to herself. Here she was talking to the love of her life, and of course it was only because there was quite possibly another apocalypse looming ahead of them. Such was her life.

"Any idea of what the big bad this way comes is?"

"Yes."

Buffy creased her forehead and listened silently.

"You destroyed the hellmouth last year. That tipped the cosmic scales in a big way. Maybe too big-"

"You're telling me _I_ did this?" She interrupted him.

"No. _We_ did this." A pause. "You don't know what happened in LA, do you?"

Buffy was taken off guard by that question. He seemed confused as he asked her, as though there was something that she could not possibly have been unaware of, yet still was. Her silence must have been answer enough for him, since he continued without a word from her.

"Look, what I'm about to tell you is an abridged version of a much longer story." He said. "We took out the members of an evil elite order that called themselves The Circle of The Black Thorn'. We killed all of them, and the senior partners of Wolfram and Hart took it personally."

"How personally?"

"Personal enough to send an army of demons after us in a back alley."

"A what of huh?"

Demon army in LA? No, she would have definitely heard something about that.

"Thousands of them, Buffy."

Buffy's head spun.

"Angel, how the hell—"

"I think the answers to any questions you ask me at this point will just confuse you more."

She shook her head.

"What happened to the demon army?"

"God intervened." Angel said, but then went on. "Well, _a_ god."

"What? There's a god now?"

Angel took a deep breath, more out of frustration than necessity, Buffy knew. It was like a man trying to explain the plot of a movie to a person who'd already missed the first act.

"It turns out we had someone powerful enough on our side who was able to… push the army back to where they come from. She had enough power to do it once, and only temporarily."

"How temporarily?"

"This was a month ago. We were hoping for more time… but it doesn't look like time is in the cards for us."

No, it never was, was it?

"So what you're telling me is—"

"We've fought back evil for years, over and over again… but it let us fight. All we've been doing is playing a game, tipping the scales back and fourth. No one was ever meant to gain the upper hand. We've done too much this time… and it's tired of us now. It's hell, Buffy… and it's coming for us whether we're ready or not."

**Flight 4315, Rome to LA**

"Hell?" Dawn asked from her aisle seat on the plane headed for LA. Buffy had gotten her and Dawn a ticket, and had told the slayers to be ready to follow. There hadn't been any time to explain, not even to Dawn. She'd asked a million questions on the way to the airport, but Buffy had mostly ignored her. Now they were in for a marathon long flight, with nothing but time for questions and answers. "He actually used the word 'hell'? You sure he didn't say 'hell-like' or 'hell-ish'?"

"It was a hell conspicuously devoid of suffixes." Buffy answered, staring blankly out her window at the clouds.

"Just because some vampire's gotten extra sirey, now hell's breaking loose?"

"The vampires aren't causing it." Buffy answered, then looked at Dawn. "They're just a side-effect."

"So what are we going to do?"

Buffy took a deep breath.

"I don't know, Dawn." She answered truthfully.

"And what's in LA that's going to help with the knowing?"

"Angel." She said quietly. "And everyone."

"Everyone?" Dawn asked, sitting up in her seat. "As in… _every_one?" Buffy said nothing, and Dawn sat back. "This really is bad, isn't it?"

"That's what I keep hearing."

**Flight 2332, Conakry to LA**

Xander sat wedged between two rather large passengers, fumbling nervously with his complimentary bag of peanuts.

"It's like they don't want you to open them." He said, slapping the bag around in his hand. One of his portly companions shifted in his seat, grumbling something about always being sat next to the annoying ones. Xander might have said something in retort, but he was too busy with his peanuts. Really, he was too busy with his unbelievable anxiety.

He was going to see them again. Buffy, Willow, Dawn. He was going to see them all again for the first time in, God, what had it been? A year, maybe? It might as well have been a decade. He'd put so much distance between him and Sunnydale, and everything that had happened in Sunnydale, that he wasn't even sure he was the same man that he had been before.

And he knew… he knew this was going to hurt.

Mostly, when he was awake, he was able to keep his thoughts occupied with his newfound quasi-watcher status. He found new girls and gave them the whole rap about destiny and then he took them back to what he lovingly referred to as HQ and started in with the training. Mostly, after a while, they trained themselves. They trained each other. Xander was more or less just their connection to the slayer. _The_ slayer.

Did Buffy know they still called her that?

Yeah, when he was awake he had a lot to keep him busy. When he was in bed, though, that was when Anya's face came to him the most… and when he couldn't push it out of his mind. God, he couldn't think about her right now.

Peanuts. Damn these peanuts!

Seeing the gang again was going to reopen all kinds of old wounds, and he wasn't entirely prepared for it.

"You think they'd give you a little pair of scissors or something." Xander complained. Suddenly the fat man who had been annoyed by him earlier grabbed the bag out of his hand and held it pointedly in front of his face as he ripped the top of the bag off with ease. He handed the peanuts back to Xander, who only stared open mouthed.

"'Tear here' isn't a suggestion." The man said before turning to his side with some effort, and away from Xander.

Xander closed his eyes and leaned heavily back against his seat as Anya's name drifted again through his thoughts. His heart began to ache in that old familiar way, and he almost laughed to himself.

No, he thought as he massaged his hand absently over his heart… "tear here" wasn't a suggestion.

**Flight 425, Hawaii to LA**

"Are you okay, baby?" Kennedy asked, pulling Willow away from her thoughts as the two made their way from Hawaii to Los Angeles on the first flight that was available to them. Her face was filled with lines of worry and her forehead appeared to be permanently knit together in a frown.

"Don't I look okay?" She asked, trying to smile. Kennedy took her hand.

"It's going to be all right, you know." She responded. Willow squeezed her girlfriend's hand in a reassuring kind of way, but it was more ironic than it was anything else because Kennedy was the one trying to do the reassuring.

"It's just…" She took a deep breath. "I haven't seen them in a long time, and – is it going to be awkward?"

Kennedy smiled.

"Some kind of unnamed bad is heading toward us full throttle and you're nervous about seeing your friends?" She asked.

Willow turned to look out from her window.

"Things are so different now." She answered quietly, solemnly. She leaned in to Kennedy's hand as the younger woman took her chin and gently turned her back to face her.

"The thing about coming back to people you love?" Kennedy started, placing a soft kiss on Willow's lips, and then looking her in the eyes. "No matter how much things have changed, it's never that different."

**Los Angeles, California**

**9:30 PM**

Buffy dropped her duffle bag at her side with a light thud. The apartment was small and dimly lit. Brick walls painted green, red couch. She could see the whole apartment from where she stood. The bed was in more of a nook off to the side of the living room, rather than being in a bedroom. There was a small kitchen, and a door to the right of it, which must have led to the bathroom. On the whole it was pretty somber and bare, but at the same time… uncharacteristically lived in. She couldn't put her finger on exactly why this didn't seem like the kind of place Angel would stay, but she thought it anyway.

"You've done a lot of nothing with the place." She said, picking up an Xbox controller and turning to Angel. Dawn sat down on the couch behind her, looking around, but not saying anything. Buffy didn't blame her… this was a lot to take in.

"The apartment's not mine." Angel said ambiguously. Buffy looked around again, feeling something very familiar as her eyes roamed over the things that were scattered around. Before she could examine the feeling closer, Angel spoke again. "When will the others be here?"

Buffy looked at him.

"Soon." She answered. Angel glanced over at Dawn, Buffy realized, for the first time. He probably had the memories just like the rest of them, but he'd never actually physically met Dawn until now.

"Buffy," Angel started seriously, pulling her off to the side just a little. "There's something you should know before the others get here. This isn't how you should've found out, but there's no time to ease you in to it now."

Buffy's heart, if it was possible, sank even lower. He'd already told her that hell was getting ready to release itself all over the world… what could he possibly have to tell her now that could put that look on his face? She was so engulfed by this thought that she didn't even think to look when she heard the door behind her open and Angel's gaze drifted toward it.

"Oh my God." Dawn said. Buffy creased her forehead and turned around.

Buffy's jaw went slack as cool blue eyes met wide ones.

"Spike?" She asked.

There were probably a thousand reasons why this shouldn't have been happening. A thousand reasons why this was impossible… and at least half of them were the fact that Spike was dead. The kind of dead that didn't allow for appearing suddenly and without warning in darkened doorways. Dead. Spike was dead. He'd been dead for more than a year. She'd dealt with that. She'd accepted it. He couldn't be standing in front of her, staring at her as though they hadn't even been apart a day. Yeah, thousands and thousands of reasons why this wasn't happening when it was – and she'd sort through every single one of them in turn once the room stopped spinning.

"Hello, Cutie." He said.

Buffy began to laugh.

Then Buffy passed out.

**...**

"Hello, cutie?" Angel asked with not just a little irritation in his voice as he and Spike lifted Buffy on to the couch, Dawn having vacated her seat the moment Spike had stepped in to the room. "What the hell was that?"

Spike looked as though he might have flipped his grandsire the V sign if his hands had not been full at the moment.

"What was I supposed to say?" He asked.

"You weren't supposed to say anything." Angel responded with exasperation in his voice and demeanor, the two standing straight and staring at each other angrily. "You were supposed to wait out in the hallway until I broke the news to her. That's what we agreed on."

"Yeah? And how was I supposed to know you hadn't told her yet, you great and unimaginable poof?"

"By the fact that she'd _just_ stepped inside the apartment, you trigger-happy _moron_!"

"Oh, it's moron now, is it?"

"No, it's always been moron. You were just too much of a moron to notice."

Dawn stood off in the corner watching the exchange with a bevy of emotions welling up from deep inside of her. Firstly, it had been hard enough to see Angel again. She had a lot of memories connected to him, and not many of them were pleasant ones. Her heartstrings were taut and easily plucked in his regard. She had expected the pain from seeing Angel. But this? This she hadn't been prepared for. How could she have been? God, it was-

"Spike?" She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but her voice cracked as she did. The two vampires looked suddenly in her direction, and both of their faces melted instantly in to something like regret – though it looked differently on each of them. On Angel it was more like a stoic kind of sympathy. On Spike it was… what was it?

**...**

"Dawn." He said almost cautiously. He had never really called her Dawn. It felt uncomfortable coming from his tongue, and it sounded strange. He didn't like it. They had been close, he and the bit. They'd been like brother and sister. Or father and daughter. Or something else entirely different… okay, maybe there weren't really words to describe what his relationship had been with Dawn, but it had been strong and it had been deep. He'd loved her almost as much as he'd loved anything, and now to see her again and call her anything other than "love" or "pet" even, it just seemed too damned formal.

Especially with the way she was looking at him. God, that look was going to break his heart.

"How?" She asked, seemingly unable to form any other word in her mouth as her eyes glazed over with tears. She took a step toward him and her leg buckled beneath her, but she was in Spike's arms before she was able to touch the ground.

"The hows can wait." He said tenderly, lifting her back to a standing position. She stared him in the eyes, clearly trying to understand what was going on.

"I think Buffy passed out." She uttered, maybe not even knowing she was speaking.

Shock. Is that what this was? Shock?

Spike nodded slowly.

"Yeah." He said, knitting his forehead. "Let's not take after big sis, and get all acquainted with the floor, all right?"

"God, this is just perfect." Angel said from behind them. Spike inclined his head in the other vampire's direction, still steadying Dawn in his hands.

"Well, what did you expect?" He asked, turning back to Dawn and finishing his sentence under his breath. "With you at the sodding helm."

Judging by the annoyed laugh as he knelt beside Buffy, Angel had still managed to hear.

Dawn stared speechlessly at Spike now, words escaping her completely.

"I know this is hard for you to take in right now." Spike said, gripping her a little firmer by her upper arms as she started to slip. "I wish it could have been different, but there was no time to plan a grand entrance. This is all we get."

"All we… all we get?" Dawn whispered nearly incoherently.

"Spike." Angel said, standing up. "One of us has to stay here with them."

Spike let Dawn go and turned to face Angel completely. Like they were two helpless little damsels that the pointy haired git had to ride in on a white horse to protect! Angel didn't know them like he did. These women were strong. They could take anything thrown at them. He'd seen it time and time again. From both sides.

"I think I know these girls enough to know that they can take care of thems—"

A thump behind Spike alerted him to the fact that Dawn had, in fact, decided to "take after big sis" after all. Spike clenched his jaw and looked up at the ceiling.

"Bloody hell."

**...**

Buffy woke up to a ceiling and periphery she didn't recognize, and a throbbing in her head that she did. That was the sweet feeling of waking up from being knocked unconscious, except it wasn't really sweet. Also, she didn't remember being in any kind of fight just now. What had happened?

Angel had picked her and Dawn up from the airport, oddly enough, in a car. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but him picking her up in a car like some kind of… normal person, it was just weird. They hadn't said much during the drive, but then she hadn't expected them to. There was too much shared history and baggage for it really to be that easy. Last time she'd seen him he was backing off in to the shadows like some anti-hero… now he was driving a black convertible with the top down like a movie star. She guessed LA did that to people.

LA also, as it turned out, brought vampires back from the dead and—

Oh.

Buffy sat up suddenly, her head spinning. She looked around the small space, but her eyes quickly fell on the form that sat quietly in the corner of the room in a dining chair.

"Are you real?" She asked, and it seemed like a lifetime ago that she had asked him that same question before. Spike sat forward out of the shadow on his elbows, and his face suddenly came in to view. Sharp lines and high cheekbones, eyes as cold as ice, and an expression that said… absolutely nothing.

"I guess it would depend on your definition." He answered her plainly.

Buffy swallowed, her mouth going dry.

"Where's—"

"Angel went to fetch your pals from the airport." Spike said, not waiting for her question.

"Dawn?" She finished.

"Laying down." Was his answer as he gestured toward the bed to her right. "Such is my effect on Summers women."

Then there was a loud silence between them. Deafening really, to the point where Buffy had to close her eyes tight just to try and ignore everything that was assailing her senses at once. She still wasn't entirely sure this wasn't some kind of dream, and if it was… if it was, mostly she just wanted to wake up.

"I didn't know how to tell you." His voice drifted up past her ears, and somehow it was worse than the silence. She opened her eyes and looked at him again.

"Tell me what?" She asked, genuinely confused. She could see Spike's throat constrict as he swallowed.

He didn't answer her.

"Tell me that you're alive?" She asked, tilting her head a bit.

"Well, yeah." He responded, quite ineloquently.

She paused.

"How long?"

The vampire was silent. With each passing second, Buffy was becoming increasingly certain that the length of time he had been back more than likely trumped the amount of time he'd been gone.

"Long enough." Was all he said.

So he'd been back pretty much the whole time. Buffy laughed a little.

"I want to be angry." She said through clenched teeth. "Or sad, or happy. I want to feel something about this, but I don't feel—"

"Buffy?" Dawn's voice called from the bed. Buffy was up in an instant and at her sister's side in the next. She sat down next to her on the bed. Dawn looked at her, confusion written as plainly on her face as if it had been scribbled there with magic marker.

"Spike…" She said. Buffy nodded.

"He's alive."

"How is it possible?" She asked.

That was a really good question.

"I don't know."

That wasn't such a good answer.

Dawn sat up and looked around.

"Where is he?"

Buffy heard a door open and then click back shut.

"Gone." She said.

Dawn's gaze fell to nothing in particular, as she seemed to try to piece everything together. Her eyebrows were knit in an almost angry looking frown. She looked back at her sister.

"What is going on?" She said, throwing her legs over the side of the bed that Buffy wasn't on, and standing up. She stared accusingly. "Did you know he was back?"

Buffy smiled a smile that was more of a grimace.

"Right," She answered. "Because I really wanted to say hello to the ground in there."

Dawn's face softened a little, as she seemed to remember what had happened.

"You… fainted." She said.

"Yeah, we can start a club."

A beat.

"I fainted?" She asked.

"Hence the waking up in a strange bed."

Dawn swallowed.

"Yeah, I was wondering…" She said, and then sat back down heavily. Then after a moment: "Buffy?"

Buffy took a deep breath, and looked at her sister expectantly.

"Spike's alive."

A pause.

"That's what I keep hearing."

Then she heard something else.

There was a burst of noise, people – several of them – coming in loudly through the door of the apartment. Buffy was up immediately and standing in the living room. She didn't have time to really register what she was seeing; she only had time to react.

"Xander!" She cried, as she helped Angel walk a bruised and bleeding Alexander Harris to the couch. Willow and Kennedy followed hurriedly behind, shutting the door when they were inside. Buffy kneeled in front of him.

"What happened?" Dawn asked frantically.

"We were ambushed." Angel said, opening a chest in the corner of the room.

"Feels just like old times." Xander said, wincing even as he spoke. Buffy smiled weakly for him, loving him as much as she ever had in that moment. She stood up and looked at the others.

"Ambushed by what?" She asked, settling quickly in to slayer mode.

"Vampires." Angel answered as he tossed her a stake from the chest and pocketing a couple for himself.

"They know, Buffy." Willow said, and all the ominous implication of just what exactly "they know" meant hung heavily in the air.

"We have to get out of here." Angel said, closing the weapons chest.

"What?" Buffy asked. "We just got here."

"We can't stay in this apartment. It's not safe. We'll have to…" He trailed off, looking around. "Where's Spike?" He asked, irritation obvious in the way he put his hands on his hips.

"Spike?" Kennedy asked in confusion, then looked at Willow. "Did we know another Spike?"

"Oh, Spike's alive." Dawn offered matter-of-factly. "Well, not alive, but—"

"When did this happen?" Willow asked, looking suddenly very confused.

"Look, you all have questions." Angel interrupted, walking over to the door and opening it. "But they wont be answered _here_, and they wont be answered _now_. _Now _we have to go."

The scoobies, together again, began to file out of the apartment, Xander clutching to Buffy for support.

"Spike." Buffy said to Angel as she stopped next to him for a moment in the doorway.

"You know Spike…" Angel said, and he followed Buffy when she moved out in to the hallway. "He'd find us even if we didn't want him to."

Dawn was the last out in to the hallway. She turned and shut the door behind her, and then to herself mumbled,

"Welcome home, team."

**TBC**

****...**  
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	2. Act II: Now What

**Title:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer

**Author:** Blue Chance

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters, but they're not doing much these days so I didn't think anyone would mind if I played with them for a bit.

**Summary**: Post BtVS "Chosen" and AtS "Not Fade Away": They saved the world again and again, you'd think they'd be allowed to rest… you'd think. A new take on the mythical Buffy season 8.

**Author's Note: **Hello, there! I don't have much to say except thank you to everyone who read the first chapter, and especially to rhain572 and Idiosyncratic Delusions for reviewing. Both your reviews made me smile and served as a reminder for why I'm doing this. For you guys. For us fans! Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this next installment!

…

**Buffy A Vampire Slayer**

**Season 8, Act II**

"**Now What"**

…

**Palos Verdes, California**

This was one of those times in life when, if life was a movie, the camera would be moving in a dramatic circular sweep as an intense dialogue took place – switching angles only to show the face of whoever was speaking, but always circling.

Except, well, no one speaking.

Buffy sat at the head of a rather long dining table in the middle of a dark dining room lit only by a few pillar candles. After having rushed everyone out of what must have been Spike's apartment, Angel had brought them all here. No one knew exactly where here was, but the basics were easy enough to pin down. It was a house and it was on a hill that overlooked the ocean. It was old. It was big enough to have a grand entranceway. Maybe even a ballroom, though none of them had been there long enough to explore – even if they'd had the inclination to do so. There didn't appear to be any electricity. Either that or Angel had learned to take the whole brooding thing to a new and epic level.

Either way, the group could barely make out each other's faces though they all sat together at the table – except for Angel who could be heard elsewhere around the house, securing all entrances and windows.

The tension in the room was high. There was no escaping the truth of this reunion, and the truth was that something bad was coming. From what Angel said, it wasn't just bad, it was _the_ bad. What was there to say?

"Willow," Buffy started, staring at her friend through the strained light. Willow met her eyes. "You cut your hair…"

The redhead smiled almost nervously as her hand went to touch her head.

"You noticed." She said.

"It looks good." Dawn offered with a small smile.

"I cut my hair." Xander cut in. Everyone in the room turned their attention to him and he deflated a little. "Well, it's probably grown out by now…"

"Not that I don't think hair is a stimulating topic for discussion," Kennedy started, looking at Willow, and then glanced around at everyone. "But would now be a good time to start talking strategy? I mean, that's why we're here, right?"

"And I thought we were here just because we missed each other." Xander said.

"Kind of hard to map out a battle plan when you're not sure what you're battling." Buffy responded to Kennedy in a decidedly superior kind of way. Old habits dying very, very hard.

"Yeah, but if it's as bad as everyone keeps saying," Dawn started. "I'm thinking escape plan more than battle plan."

"Escape to where?" Kennedy asked. "Hate to break it do you, but if this thing goes down there wont be anywhere to run and hide."

Buffy turned her head slightly in suspicion at Kennedy as a crease cut in to her forehead. That sounded weirdly definitive coming from someone who, by all accounts, shouldn't have known more than any of the rest of them did.

"How do you know?" Dawn asked, a hint of irritation clearly showing through in her voice.

It wasn't Kennedy who answered.

"We saw it." Willow said. The shift in the room was audible as everyone turned their attention to the red head.

"You saw it?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"I thought you said you only felt it." Xander countered. Buffy's eyes shot to his face.

"You knew?" She asked. Xander shrugged slightly, sheepishly.

"She might have mentioned something over the phone."

Buffy swung her gaze back to Willow.

"And why am I just now hearing about this?" She asked. Willow frowned.

"I didn't know how to tell you."

_I didn't know how to tell you._

Buffy closed her eyes tightly for a moment. She'd almost forgotten the incredible shock she had received not even two hours before.

Spike was back. No, he wasn't just back. That made it seem as though he'd merely been gone on vacation somewhere. He wasn't just back; he was back from the dead. And what did that mean, anyway? Was he still a vampire? Did he still have his soul? Had he come back different?

_You came back wrong._

Buffy opened her eyes, settling them on Willow's face once again.

"What is it with everyone?" She asked. "You know how you tell someone something? You open your mouth and these things called words come out. Sometimes these words tell stories or-"

"Hey," Kennedy said, clearly ready to jump in and defend her girlfriend. "She's telling you now. Why don't you _close_ your mouth and listen?"

Really, the two of them had never gotten along too well.

"If you two know something, you should have told her!" Dawn said, taking up Buffy's side of it.

"Why is she so important that she has the right to know every thing?" Kennedy asked, anger rising in her voice. "Not the only slayer in the room, last time I checked."

"Hey, hey, hey!" Xander interjected, standing up from his chair, using the tabletop to help balance him – wincing visibly as he moved. "Far be it for me to betray my gender by putting the kibosh on a good old fashioned cat fight but... The maturity level in the room has dropped precariously close to E when uncle Xander has to step in."

The room went silent for a few moments.

"Precariously?" Willow asked, seeming insultingly impressed. Xander didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah, I bought one of those word a day calendars."

"… Uncle Xander?" Dawn asked, a little less impressed and a little more puzzled.

"Okay, that… I have no excuse for." He said, and then sat back down pointedly.

"This house should be safe for now." Angel said suddenly from the dining room archway. Buffy looked at him and was able to ignore two things simultaneously: the slight flip in her stomach that always seemed to come from hearing his voice after any kind of an absence, and the question as to who "this house" belonged to. That was something that she really didn't want to bother with knowing at the moment. If he said they were safe for now, for now that was all that mattered.

"Is the here and now ready for those answers that you were talking about earlier?" Kennedy asked. Angel came in to the room but didn't join the rest of the table, opting instead to lean against a dingy wall. He said nothing. Either that was his way of saying he wasn't going to answer any questions, or it was his way of saying that he was.

Buffy took a deep breath.

"Willow, what did you see?"

"It wasn't anything we saw." Willow started. "It was like learning something knew, and knowing it was right." She shook her head. "Except it's not right. It's wrong. It was a feeling of helplessness and…" She paused.

"And what?" Buffy asked.

"It felt like… the end." She responded.

"What does that mean?" Dawn asked, fear evident on her face as well as in her voice.

"What we saw, it-" She caught herself. "_Felt_. It was like seeing in to a future filled with nothing."

Buffy was becoming increasingly confused and frustrated.

"So did you see it or did you feel it? Will, you're not—"

"That's what she's trying to tell you." Angel interrupted. He'd been so quiet; Buffy had almost forgotten he was standing there. Xander had once suggested a collar and bell for the man, and it had never actually struck Buffy as a bad idea. "She didn't see it because there was nothing to see."

He stepped forward and the candlelight danced against his dark features, his grave expression saying more than words ever could.

Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them she stood up from the table and began pacing a little in front of her chair. Her mind was racing with this. Apocalypse? She could deal with that. She _had_ dealt with that – many _many _times. But if Willow's third eye or sixth sense, or whatever exactly it was that she had, looked in to the future and saw nothing, what did that mean? She stopped her movement and looked toward Angel.

"How do we fight nothing?"

**…**

Spike walked slowly through the hallway to his apartment. Okay, so maybe leaving the slayer and the nibblet wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, but at the time he had thought staying around and confusing them more than they clearly already were was a worse idea. Besides, he'd made sure they were both awake by the time he'd left. He'd meant what he said to Angel, after all. They were two strong and capable women who didn't need—

He smelled blood just before he realized his door was unlocked. He stood still for a moment listening.

Nothing.

Spike opened the door and stepped in to the small flat cautiously, smelling for anyone who didn't belong there… but it was empty. He turned quickly to the couch where the smell of blood was obviously coming from. It wasn't Buffy's blood and it wasn't Dawn's blood. That meant that someone else had been here with them before…

Hang on. Where were they?

Spike suppressed the feeling of panic that was threatening to rise up in his chest, and tried to think rationally about this. He began a mental checklist of things he knew for sure.

Someone had been bleeding in this apartment within the last couple of hours.

Dawn and Buffy were gone.

The feeling of panic was rising again.

_No_, Spike thought, _keep it together, mate_… What else did he know?

The scent of blood on the couch wasn't strong. Whatever wound it had come from, then, couldn't have been very serious. Also, Angel had only gone to get the birds and the boy from the very nearby airport. He would have been back before even the Summers girls could have found themselves some trouble. But then again, it _was_ Buffy and Dawn.

_Sodding, buggering, bloody hell…_

Spike went to the weapons chest in the corner of the room and swung it open… only to find that several things were missing, including Angel's very favorite retractable stakes. Spike tucked his tongue under his teeth and managed not to curse as he slammed the weapons chest closed.

"Right." He said out loud. Of course. No danger, here. They'd just decided to leave him behind.

The air changed.

Spike was around in an instant – facing the door and catching an arrow in midair before it found its mark. Presumably his heart, Spike realized, snapping the very _wooden_ arrow in half with one hand.

"Hey!" He said angrily as he eyed only the foot of the assailant as it turned and ran from the door. Spike gave chase out through the door and down the hallway. It was maybe three seconds, five at most, before the would-be assassin was struggling, back against Spike's chest. "That wasn't very polite." Spike growled, twisting his prisoner's arm behind his back. "Try to kill a bloke and then don't even stay for tea?"

It was a vampire, obviously. No heart beat, no warmth… terrible taste in clothes. God, did they all look that bloody stupid?

"Who sent you?" Spike demanded.

"I'm not going to tell you a damn—" Spike twisted the thing's hand harder. "We know the slayer and her friends are back in town, we don't want her here, and we're sending her a message!"

Spike almost laughed.

"_The_ slayer?" He asked. "I think I'm the one who's got a message for you, friend."

"Ha, you think we don't already know?"

Spike frowned and spun the vampire around to face him.

"Know what?" He asked in a low and menacing voice. The thing laughed.

"The slayer's got her army, and now we're making ours."

"Very soon to be minus one."

It laughed again.

"For every one of us you see, there're a thousand of us you don't."

Spike's face shifted to the demon that was always just beneath the surface.

"Preaching to the wrong choir." He responded.

"And you're playing for the wrong team."

"Never been much of a team player."

"Well, you and your not teammates are going to find yourselves very dead very soon."

Spike's lips pulled back over his fangs in to a smile.

"Well, the thing about me and my not teammates?" He asked, taking the vampire roughly by its hair and speaking close in to its ear. "Even if you manage to kill us once or twice, it's keeping us dead that's the trick."

**…**

Buffy stared quietly through the ratty curtains of the dark bedroom that Angel had directed her to for the night. She could hear the moonlit waves rolling in on to the beach even through the glass, and it was almost… nice. With everything that had happened, she hadn't really been able to stop and think about the fact that she was home again. America. California. It seemed like such a long time.

She leaned her head against the cold glass and closed her eyes.

She was suddenly very tired.

"Buffy?" Came Dawn's voice. Buffy opened her eyes and looked toward the entrance of the room. Dawn's form was illuminated by the moonlight pouring in to the room through the curtains that Buffy still held open. She'd taken off her plaid button down shirt and now stood before her sister in a spaghetti strapped undershirt, her hair pulled back in to a simple ponytail.

"What's up?" Buffy asked. "You okay?"

Dawn stepped in to the room.

"This is…" She looked around, and then sat down heavily on the old bed in the middle of the small space. "Weird, isn't it?"

Buffy let the curtains fall closed, and went to sit next to her sister.

"Trying to win the award for understatement of the millennium?"

"I've never been in it for the recognition." Dawn quipped.

The two were silent for a moment.

"What's going to happen tomorrow?" The younger sister asked. Buffy took a deep breath.

"I don't know." She said, and then ran a hand through her hair. "Research. Something."

"Why did we have to come here for that?"

Buffy thought about it, and the only answer she had wasn't exactly a good one.

"Because we're better together than we are apart." She answered.

Dawn nodded a little.

"Then why did we stay apart so long?"

**…**

Xander lay on his back in his dark room with his arms behind his head. Well, that hadn't been so hard, had it? The vampire attack and its accompanying pain had quickly snuffed out most of any potential awkwardness. Kennedy had protected herself and Willow, of course. Angel was obviously able to protect himself. But Xander? Good old human-y Xander who didn't even have a complete set of eyes? He might as well have started flailing his arms around wildly and introducing himself as "sitting duck".

Wow, it'd been a long time since he'd felt helpless.

For every blow he blocked, the vampire attacking him landed about three. By the time Angel and Kennedy's vampires had been dusted, Xander was on the ground and bleeding. It hurt his pride a little more than it hurt his face seeing as how he'd had more than enough experience fighting the undead to be able to at least hold his own, but in his defense he had been weaponless and also taken off guard.

Still though? It was almost hard to mind. It gave the whole meeting back up thing a sense of urgency that it had honestly kind of lacked to begin with. There hadn't been any time after that for the hi-how-have-you-been's. It had been all about the fray and jumping in to it, or maybe out of it. But there had definitely been fray. Really, that's what they'd all been used to. It made things easier in a way. He'd meant what he said to Buffy when he saw her for the first time in a very long time.

_"Feels just like old times."_

Xander turned to his side.

Yeah, just like old times… except with one major difference.

He tried to ignore the dull stabbing pain in his chest when he thought about how the last time they had all been together working toward a solution for yet another doomsday scenario, Anya had been there with them. He didn't remember her actually having helped a whole lot, but she had been there through all of it providing… What had she called it?

_Much needed sarcasm._

It _was_ needed. Xander didn't realize how needed until she was gone. He hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye.

Goodbye. What a stupid concept. Like that would have made it any easier. Goodbye was just another way of not getting what you wanted. He didn't want a chance at goodbye; he wanted a chance at hello. A chance at making things right. A chance at being with the woman he loved. Didn't everyone deserve that?

**…**

"Ugh, she's already starting in with the ego trip." Kennedy said with a roll of her eyes as she turned away from Willow in their bed. The witch put her arms across the brunette's waist and buried her head in her neck. "Did you hear her in there? 'Why didn't you tell _me_? Why wasn't my glorious self the _first_ to know?'"

"Buffy's a leader." Willow responded. "I don't think that kind of thing is easy to just turn on and off."

"Are you defending her?" Kennedy asked, not so much in an angry way but more of a disappointed way. "Because I really want to mad right now, and that's going to ruin it for me."

"I'm not defending, I'm explaining."

Kennedy sighed.

"You're defending."

"Maybe a little."

Kennedy turned back over to face the other woman.

"She just… she gets under my skin, you know?"

Willow smiled a little.

"As much as I love Buffy," She started, bringing her hand up to caress her girlfriend's cheek. "I don't want her having anything to do with your skin."

Kennedy stared in to the green eyes that stared in to hers, and she smiled, too.

"Are you handling me?" She asked.

"Only if you say 'pretty please'."

Then, as if on cue, the smile faded from both women's faces. Willow took a deep breath and tried to force the smile back, but all she could manage was a worried frown. What was going to happen if they couldn't figure this out? A big ball of nothing seemed tame enough, but when that nothing was in place of a future… it seemed so much scarier. It was like a college student's nightmare.

"We'll stop it." Kennedy said, and Willow wasn't surprised that her girlfriend had known what she was thinking.

"We've done this kind of thing so many times. I don't know why this one's giving me the butterflies."

Kennedy reached down and clasped Willow's hand. She could sense that those words were coming again, the ones that Kennedy seemed to mean with all her heart, but that she herself couldn't bring herself to say. It's not that she didn't feel it, she just couldn't say it.

"We should get some sleep." She said hastily before Kennedy could get her words in. She kissed her softly on the forehead and turned around. Kennedy said nothing for a moment.

"Yeah, I guess." She said, sounding disappointed. "Goodnight."

**…**

Angel was awake. He could sense the still of the air all around him and knew that his guests were finally falling asleep. He, however, was not tired. It was a little strange, after a year at Wolfram and Hart, to find that his sleeping cycle had gone almost immediately back to what it used to be before the sun-proof windows and a 9 to 5 kind of day. He adapted quickly.

Spike, on the other hand, still kept a strangely human routine. He woke up and stayed up late, but still most of his waking hours were spent during the day. Angel often times wanted to pass this off as Spike inefficient usage of his time; vampires couldn't do much during the day, after all… but sometimes, when Angel was being real honest with himself, he saw it for something different. Spike had always been a little more human than other vampires. Than himself. Even before he went for the ultimate form of flattery and got his soul, he had been different. Angel had never understood what that meant, and still didn't. He also wasn't sure that he cared, except now…

Now that he had signed away his right to the Shanshu—

Angel's thoughts were cut off abruptly before he could really think about that.

Someone was at the door.

He was up in an instant and opening the large oak slab, letting in a nice gust of cold night air.

"Took you long enough." He said as Spike gave him an annoyed glance and walked past him in to the house.

"Yeah, well… not like I knew exactly where you lot'd run off to, did I?" He asked, turning to Angel as he shut the door. "You try following a scent for 30 miles on a particularly windy night. If it sounds fun, you're imagining it wrong."

Angel crossed his arms over his chest with an almost amused smirk on his face.

"Are you… whining?" He asked.

Spike looked offended.

"No!" He said. A beat. "Although it would have been nice to have been informed that the party was moving to a new venue."

"If you had stayed at the apartment like I told you to, you would have been there when the leaving it actually became necessary." He paused, but not long enough to let Spike say anything. "Where did you go?"

"Out." Spike responded, though he very suddenly looked confused as he surveyed his surroundings. He had a deep furrow between his eyebrows when he looked back at Angel. "How did I get in here?" He asked.

Angel let out a short laugh, and turned to walk back in to the dining room. That would have been the first question he would have asked if he had just walked in to a house without an invitation. Spike followed.

"Do you own this place?" The blonde vampire inquired, picking up a candlestick from an old sideboard along the wall as Angel took a seat at the table.

"Don't touch anything, Spike." He said. Spike cocked an eyebrow.

"Right." He said as he set the candlestick down. "Answers that question."

Spike walked around the length of the table and paused at the head, staring down at the chair there. His hand hovered over a wooden armrest for a few moments as though he could feel heat coming from it, and he was just warming his skin. His eyes were filled with something Angel didn't quite recognize from him… what was it? Brain activity?

Spike's hand fell back to his side as he looked up and then around.

"How's, uh…" He took a seat across from Angel, which was not the one he'd just been regarding.

"She's fine." Angel answered as he flipped through a rather thick and particularly boring tome of nonsense. This wasn't his area of expertise. Research had always been Wesley's department.

But Wes was gone.

"Fine way to say hello." Spike scoffed, settling in to his chair. "Didn't even have the decency to stay conscious."

Angel looked up from the book at Spike, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"What?" He asked. Not that he cared.

"Well, I'm just saying." Spike responded indignantly. "Doesn't see you for a spell, and what do you get? A big wet 'hello'." He said, forming overly punctuated air quotations with his fingers. "I come back from the _dead_ and it's lights out."

"I'm sure it was a shock." Angel said, returning his eyes to the book. "Or a disappointment." He added under his breath.

"I wasn't prepared to see her when she came back from _her_ little death jaunt." Spike said more to himself than to Angel, uncharacteristically passing over his last comment. "You didn't see me passing—hey!" He said angrily.

"Spike, do you have anything important to say, or are you just going to annoy me for the rest of the night?"

Spike smiled with a slight tilt of his head.

"Hopefully both." He answered.

Angel let out an exasperated sigh and Spike sat forward.

"I was attacked at the apartment." He said. Angel nodded.

"Doesn't surprise me. So were we."

"Vampire?"

"Six of them."

"Did you get anything out of them?"

"Ashes." Was Angel's laconic response.

"I had a nice little chat with mine."

"Anything interesting?"

"They know the slayer's in town. His words, not mine. They know about the army our girl raised, and they still call her _the _slayer, which makes me think she's got a big target on her head."

"Of course she does. Always has."

"Blasé." Spike said, cocking his head back a bit.

"Look, we know they're after Buffy. They've always been after Buffy. Got anything remotely useful?"

"He said something about raising an army of their own."

Angel sat back.

"That makes sense." He shook his head. "Dammit."

"More or less what I was thinking. There're only a finite amount of slayers, even with the stunt Buffy pulled. Vampires… it only takes one of us to sire thousands. I don't know what took them so long to come to this conclusion, honestly."

"Do we know if this has anything to do with our other problem?"

Spike shrugged.

"In my experience when something looks too much like a coincidence, it's not."

Heavy silence fell over the room, as the two men seemed to ruminate over what had just been said.

"Buffy looked nice." Spike said, his mood changing abruptly.

"Yeah," Angel agreed without hesitation. "I like how she's wearing her hair."

"It's the highlights. Lighter's always looked better on her."

The room became quiet again, albeit a bit more awkwardly.

**Westbury, England**

The study was almost more of a library than it was a study, but not quite large enough to really be a library. Old books lined the walls in shelves that went up to the ceiling, and instead of a desk there was a large wooden table in the middle of the room. During the day sunlight streamed in through the windows, and at night the fireplace was almost always lit, so the books very rarely saw any kind of artificial light. At this moment the sun was up, but behind a cover of clouds… so the room was bathed in a kind of dim white light.

Giles sat in an old leather armchair pulled to the side of the unlit fireplace, pensively watching the girl who sat in front of him in an identical chair. She hadn't said a word in quite a few minutes, but that didn't mean that plenty of them weren't running through her head. He had to be patient with this one, because she wasn't going to give up anything she didn't want to give up. She looked tired and her scraggly brown hair hung just so that he could barely see her eyes.

"I don't know…" Dana started finally, and Giles shifted in his seat just an imperceptible bit, readying to hear anything she had to say. "I don't know if what I'm seeing is real, or if it's a dream, or if it's…" She paused. "If it's a memory."

Giles took a deep breath. He didn't think now was the time to try and to explain to her again the difference between reality and nightmares, though he was certain that when she did understand it her narratives would be a lot more helpful.

"You had another vision last night?" Giles asked.

The girl met his eyes.

"Every night." She answered ominously.

"Are you ready to tell me what is it you're seeing?"

Dana's eyes traveled slowly to the dead fireplace and stopped there.

"I killed them, Mr. Giles." She whispered. "All those people."

Giles sat back in his seat. This isn't where he wanted the conversation to go, but he couldn't ignore it either. He'd have to talk to her about this before she'd tell him anything else. It was how she worked.

"Yes, you did." He responded truthfully.

"Why can't I get them out of my head?"

"Do you think you should be able to?"

Her eyes shot back to his suddenly.

"No." She answered. "I shouldn't be able to do anything. I'm dangerous."

"I'm well aware of how dangerous you are."

"Then why am I here? I don't belong here."

"We've been through this." Giles said, sitting up. "You belong here with us; with we who understand your strength and where it comes from."

"I didn't ask for this strength."

"No, none of you girls did… but what you did or didn't ask for has no bearing on what you've got."

The girl looked down.

"I can't be saved." She said.

"Do you really believe that?"

She took a moment before answering.

"I'm a monster." She said. "Just like _them_."

Them. Vampires.

"Except I'm worse." She continued, looking in to Giles' eyes once more. "Aren't I?" She asked. "I had a soul when I did all those things."

"A soul isn't a moral compass." Giles responded. "It takes more than just a soul to know what is right and what is wrong. There's enough evil in this world among an ensouled human race without even considering vampires or demons."

"Is that what I am?" Dana asked. "Evil?"

"No. I don't believe anyone is inherently evil, but I do think that circumstances – be they somehow justifiable or not – can drive a person to do evil acts. It takes strength and fortitude of mind to be always capable of choosing the right path."

"I only have one of those." She said. "Strength."

"Yet here you are sitting with me, having a perfectly reasonable conversation."

The girl laughed.

"Reasonable? Visions and vampires? Demons and souls? What's reasonable about this? This might not even be happening." She seemed to not like that idea as she shrank a bit back in to her seat and folded her arms across her chest – a sort of lost look appearing in her eyes and over her face. Giles didn't like that either. When she had first come here her behavior had been very unpredictable and she rarely even spoke in complete sentences. More and more in the past six months, she seemed to be coming out of the dark haze that she'd been in for 15 years. She still slept in a locked, steel fortified room and a close eye was still kept on her at all times, mostly by other more experienced slayers… but there were moments where she almost seemed normal now. Sometimes it was easy to forget how quickly she could regress.

"You are awake, and this is real." Giles told her. She swallowed, and taking a deep breath with her eyes closed she nodded. When she opened her eyes again, the look that had been there moments before was gone, and she seemed lucid.

"I saw darkness." She said, and Giles was confused only for a moment before realizing that she was telling him about her vision now. "Cold, black, empty."

"What did you feel?"

"Afraid." She answered with no hesitation.

"Why afraid?"

"Because I can't hurt it." She responded. "It's nothing, and it's coming."

Giles furrowed his forehead.

"What do you mean, 'it's nothing'?"

She touched her hand to her head and closed her eyes.

"There's nothing to touch or see. Everything's gone. Everything."

"And this is coming?"

She opened her eyes and they were somehow sharper and more piercing than Giles had ever seen them in any of their countless meetings in this study.

"It's the end of everything. Not just our world… it's the end of every world."

She paused. "Your slayer doesn't know it yet, but there's nothing she can do about it."

Giles felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"My slayer?" He asked, feeling certain he had never mentioned being Buffy's watcher to her or any of the other slayers on the estate.

"He thinks they're hard to kill." She said cryptically, her eyes losing their sharpness, and Giles had no idea what she meant. "He thinks you can burn up saving the world and always come back, because he's done it, and she's done it, and an Angel's done it… but she's going to die before any of us, Mr. Giles… and she's going to stay dead."

**Palos Verdes, California**

Buffy opened her eyes confusedly. She'd heard something. What-?

Oh, her phone was ringing.

Buffy sat up on the bed in the dark room that smelled like dust and old leather, and ran her hand over her face, trying to get her bearings. This was the second instance within a relatively short amount time that she had awakened to a place she didn't recognize at first. She stood up off the bed and walked to the chair in the corner where her jacket laid. The phone was lighting up in the pocket, and she took it out and sat down.

"Hello?" She answered groggily.

"Hello, Buffy?" The English accent came from the other end of the phone. Buffy took the device away from her ear for a moment to check the time, and then returned it to her face.

"Giles, it's 3 in the morning."

"Three in the morning?" He sounded confused. "It's noon in Rome."

Buffy winced slightly. Oh yeah.

"That's true. But it's 3 in the morning in California… where I am."

"California?" He asked. "What are you doing in California?"

"Angel asked us to come. Something big is happening."

"Angel?" Giles asked in what sounded like disbelief. "And you trusted him? And who is 'us'?"

"'Us' is everyone." She said, not explaining further. "And I trust him."

She could hear Giles inhale deeply.

"I didn't want to call you until I knew more." She said.

"I believe I may know more." He responded after a moment, and went on before Buffy could say anything. "Dana had a vision."

"Oh, let me guess. Big party of nothing where no one is invited and the DJ plays a whole lot of no—"

"She said you're going to die, Buffy."

Buffy was quiet for only a second.

"She could be getting me confused with a past slayer." She reasoned, shaking her head a bit. "Or she could be seeing the past. She could be seeing my death in the past."

"She was clear that this was a future death."

She didn't understand why, but she wasn't afraid. Her death had been prophesied both times. She'd had dreams about it both times. She had known, somehow, both times. The first time it was written in a book, the second her guide told her… death was her gift. She had to believe that if she were going to die, something in her would know it.

Buffy looked up and was startled to see a dark form standing in her doorway.

"Giles, It's late." She said, trying to sound undisturbed. " I've had a long day. I'll call you tomorrow and we can talk about me dying all you want, okay?"

There was a long pause. Maybe he was cleaning his glasses. Maybe he was scowling as he judged her for her… what would he say? What was a very stuffy thing that he could judge her for? Insolence? No, she wasn't being insolent. Indifferent, maybe. Buffy almost smiled to herself. After all this time, even with everything that was happening, he could still occasionally make her feel like that sixteen year old who always had to try and live up to his expectations.

"I understand." He answered finally, surprising her a little. "We'll talk tomorrow. About… everything."

Did he sound mad? Buffy could quite tell.

"Goodnight, Giles." She said. He was saying goodbye as she snapped her phone shut, and sat back in the chair.

"You found us." She said flatly.

"Couldn't hide from me if you wanted to." Came Spike's voice from the doorway.

"That's what Angel said." She responded. "You've been working for him this whole time?"

"_With_." Spike corrected, sounding mildly offended.

"Why didn't he tell me?"

"Wasn't his place."

"Then why didn't you?" He asked, biting down on her jaw. She still wasn't quite sure what she felt about this, or if she even believed it, but she knew that him keeping her in the dark about it was wrong.

"Wasn't my place anymore, either."

Buffy didn't know what to say to that. She didn't even know what it meant.

"Right then." Spike said. "I'll let you sleep."

Then he was gone.

Buffy stood up and walked back to the bed. There was something weirdly amazing about knowing that Spike was alive, though it still kind of felt like a dream. She knew, deep down, that it was making her happy – she just couldn't feel it quite yet. Maybe because there was also something sad about him being back, sad about the fact that he hadn't felt it necessary to even tell her. She lay down and closed her eyes. She wasn't ready to process the whole Spike thing, and she couldn't think about it. Not right now.

**…**

Buffy woke up screaming. Dawn sat beside her on the bed, looking at her worriedly while Willow stood above her.

"Buffy, you're dreaming." Dawn said. Buffy sat up and looked around, feeling something like how she thought a wild animal might feel waking up in a cage after being tranquilized.

"What was it?" Willow asked. "Did you see something?"

Buffy's chest rose and fell in quick succession and her eyes glittered with worry. Yes, she did see something.

Her death.

**TBC**

**…**


	3. Act III: Trust Is A Two Way Mirror

**Title:** Buffy A Vampire Slayer

**Author:** Blue Chance

**Disclaimer:** All the Buffyverse is just a stage that Joss built, and I am merely a player with a word program.

**Summary**: Post BtVS "Chosen" and AtS "Not Fade Away": They saved the world again and again, you'd think they'd be allowed to rest… you'd think. A new take on the mythical Buffy season 8.

**Author's Note:** Hello! I have been hard at work at this story for quite a while now, and my brother has become my official accomplice in crime. There have been a lot of late night brainstorming sessions powered exclusively by profuse amounts of hot Earl Grey tea, which have resulted in a lot of breathtaking and exciting ideas. We're both looking very much forward to where this story is headed. Having said that, while a lot of this story has been plotted out and outlined, only a few chapters have actually been completely written. This means that updates may not be as frequent, because I will not be posting any chapter that hasn't been plotted, written, and polished. I hope it shows.

Thanks to typ-writer, Karen, and rhain572 for reviewing the last chapter. I appreciate the feedback as always and can only hope to not let you down! In answer to rhain572's question as to how long after season 7 this is: it's about a year after season 7 of Buffy, and about a little over a month since Angel season 5.

Now on to the story!

**Buffy A Vampire Slayer**

**Season 8, Act III**

"**Trust Is A Two Way Mirror"**

**...**

**Westbury, England**

"I specifically asked you to keep me informed of any change." Giles said in to the phone, not attempting to mask the irritation from his voice. "I think Buffy suddenly flying to LA qualifies."

"Buffy told me not to tell." Andrew's tinny voice came through the receiver. "She's like Yoda. She may be small, but she has power that transcends her size. Even without the lightsaber, you don't want to get on her bad side."

"Honestly, you have an air of ridiculous about you that still manages to astound me."

"Hey, if anyone has the right to be grumpy around here, it's me!" The younger man protested. "Buffy takes her sister on vacation to LA and leaves me here to slayersit a group of girls who can't tell a Romulan from a Vulcan. I only have so much patience."

Giles took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"That's perfectly good breath you're wasting, Andrew." He said, and then replaced the glasses on his face. "Now tell me, what did Buffy say before she left?"

"Not much." Andrew responded. "Girl's kind of big with the vague. Keeps things on a need to know. She just told us to wait and be ready."

"Ready?" Giles asked. "Ready for what?"

"I guess we didn't need to know."

"And she said nothing else?"

"Other than telling me not to drink all the diet coke while she's gone?" Andrew asked. "Not really."

Giles said nothing for a few moments, realizing that there was nothing more to find out than what Buffy had already told him. She was the only one who knew her exact motives for leaving in such a hurry, and for keeping it from him. But she had asked Andrew and the slayers to be ready. What did she know that she was keeping to herself?

"You never told her that Spike was alive, did you?" He asked.

"He asked me not to, but she probably knows now… being in LA and all."

"If she's seen him, she didn't mention it when I spoke to her."

"That doesn't mean she didn't see him. She's tight lipped, that one."

Giles frowned.

"Apparently."

Palos Verdes, California

Buffy sat with her legs pulled up to her chest just outside the reach of the water that kept rolling in and then out back to sea. The sun was just barely risen and the sky was still a soft blue, streaked with orange. It was beautiful, really. She'd seen a lot of beautiful things, having traveled all over Europe… having lived in the "eternal city", but nothing was quite this beautiful. The beauty of being home. She hadn't even known that she'd missed it this much.

She wasn't ready to talk to them about what she'd seen in her dream. Not yet.

**…**

"Hey, I noticed a lack of electricity last night, so I figured there probably wasn't much in the way of safely refrigerated food lying around." Xander said as he placed a pink box of doughnuts in the middle of the dining room table. Two brunettes and a redhead looked up at him from their respective pile of books.

"Ooh." Dawn said, grabbing a maple bar from the pink box. "I like Uncle Xander."

Xander pulled out a chair and sat down with the ladies.

"Any luck?" He asked.

"Sure, if you call…" Kennedy started, and then paused with a crease across her forehead. "You know what? It's too early for wit. We've had no luck."

"Was anyone able to get anything out of Buffy?"

"She didn't want to talk about it." Willow said, with characteristic concern plastered over her face. "But judging by the waking up screaming, I'm thinking it wasn't a fun dream."

"Where is she now?"

"Doing the lonely slayer thing." Kennedy responded, her eyes on the book in front of her.

"She needed some time." Dawn countered, shooting the other girl a defensive look. "She just… went out for some air."

Willow shut her book.

"Did anyone else notice Spike standing in the hallway last night?"

There was an overall shift in the room as everyone voiced their opinions at the same time. Dawn's voice rose above the rest after a few moments.

"I told you he was back." She said.

"Yeah, and that's all we need right now." Xander responded. Dawn looked at him.

"Spike died to save the world." She started, her face nearly just as defensive as when she had spoken of her sister moments before. "Maybe we can ease up on the hate a little bit."

Xander sighed.

"No, it's…" He shook his head, and paused for a moment. "It's good on the surface. He's one more person to help us keep on keeping on… but my gut feeling tells me that this isn't exactly a miracle."

"Have a doughnut." Dawn said. "Might help with the gut feeling."

"I know it's a hard concept to grasp, but I'm being serious."

"What?" Willow asked. "You think him being back has something to do with the big nothing?"

"Do I think one weird thing has something to do with another weird thing?" He shrugged. "Would that be lame and derivative?"

"He's right." Kennedy agreed. "And how to we know he's still good? How do we know anything?"

"We don't." Buffy said from the dining room entrance way. None of the others had noticed her walk up. "And we can sit here and think of the worst scenario where we've all been tricked in to coming here so that Angel and Spike can have us all in one place when they decide to turn on us… or we can try to accept the idea that we have two more people on our team who are willing to help, and who have—ooh, doughnuts?"

The blonde slayer walked in to the room and reached for a plain cake doughnut. The others only stared at her, identical looks of confusion on their faces.

"What?" She asked with a mouthful of doughnut.

"Well, you seem…" Xander started, but couldn't seem to find the word.

"Better." Willow finished for him.

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

Dawn glanced around at the other faces before settling her gaze back over her sister.

"Woke up screaming… ring any bells?"

Buffy sat down next to her sister.

"A few." She answered. "But it's nothing we have to worry about right now."

"Implying that it's something we have to worry about later?" Xander asked.

"Implying that we have other things to worry about."

"Right," Kennedy said, slamming her book shut. "Getting back to the whole 'we might have been lured here as a trap' thing."

"That doesn't make any sense." Dawn said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Kennedy responded, looking at her. "I must have missed the part where any of this does."

"Okay…" Willow started, slowly standing. The two younger girls looked up at her. "I get the tense, but I don't get the catty."

Dawn let out a short laugh as she stood as well.

"I don't understand why you guys are so quick to jump down Spike's throat."

"Whoa," Xander said, his hands out as a white flag. "No one's jumping down any part of Spike. We just—"

"He died for us." Dawn interrupted, and then cast her angry glare at Buffy who looked wholly unprepared for it. "For _you_."

Buffy was silent for a moment, seeming to regard her sister thoughtfully as the others in the room watched the two of them.

"Dawn, what is this?" She asked finally, and it didn't seem to be with anger or suspicion, but rather confusion and concern. "Where is this coming from?"

Dawn eyed her intensely for a moment, before rolling the blue orbs in an obvious act of frustration, and pushing past Willow and out of the dining room. Buffy stayed where she was, not turning to watch the girl go.

"Left field." Xander said, breaking the quiet. Buffy's eyes traveled to his face, wordlessly questioning him. "That's where it came from."

**…**

Spike sat cross-legged up against the headboard of the bed that Angel had made very clear was not his, but that he could use while the lot of them were holed up in this ambiguously acquired mansion. He'd inquire deeper in to that later, but for now he supposed it didn't matter much.

He stared quietly with an unlit cigarette between two fingers, staring out at the boarded up windows, bits of ghostly sunlight streaming in through the cracks. That was the one thing he missed about Wolfram and Hart - the ability to walk around in rooms and hallways filled with sunlight. He'd taken it for granted while he'd been there, never really stopping to feel the heat on the windows or the way things looked so much different during the day. He thought now that if he could go back, he'd appreciate it more… but then he thought, thank God he would never have to go back.

He felt her before he heard her or saw her.

The door creaked open.

"Spike?" Came Dawn's hesitant voice. Spike could see her step in to the darkness of the room and he knew she couldn't see him. She couldn't have known he was in here, and judging by her tentative and useless blind-eye sweep of the room – this was just one of the many she had tramped through in search of him. His dead heart almost seemed to swell at the thought that his girl had actually come looking for him, but he wouldn't let himself feel too much joy. Didn't know her motives, after all.

He briefly considered letting her walk out without alerting her to his presence as she turned to go, but curiosity got the better of him.

"Right here, Dawn." He said. She turned suddenly back around, startled.

Dawn. God, he'd called her Dawn again.

"Spike." She repeated, this time not as a question. She seemed suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin as her face shifted in to lines of confusion, her eyes scanning the darkness for him.

Spike was quiet for a moment as he tried to think of something appropriate to the situation to say, but nothing came to mind.

"How's Buffy?" He asked mindlessly.

"She's either fine or pretending to be." Dawn answered, stepping further in to the room, the lines having softened on her face. Her eyes were more than likely mostly adjusted to the small bit of light that leaked in to the room from the windows now. "You know Buffy."

He had the feeling, all in all, that the last added comment of hers was meant to sting him somehow. Which it did, so good on her. Truth was, and he knew this with a dull stabbing pain in his chest, that a year away from a person could do more to pull them apart than maybe even death could. Hell, his torch had burned brighter and hotter for Buffy that summer she'd been gone than it ever had before or ever did after… but this past year away from her, he'd gotten wholly used to the idea of, well, being away from her. The slayer had an uncanny popstar-like ability of reinventing herself every year, so he wondered if he'd know her at all now.

Didn't mean he didn't love her, of course. It didn't mean that at all.

Dawn was standing just at the foot of the bed now, staring Spike in the eyes. When did that happen?

"Right." Was all he could manage to say at first, and then, "And how about you-?"

The tail end of his question ended abruptly even to his own ears as he was about to call her by one of the many monikers he'd always referred to her as, but something stopped him.

"Why didn't you tell us?" She asked in an affectedly cool tone, ignoring his question in favor of asking her own.

He looked over her face, all hard and tense and full of so many emotions that he couldn't pick just one out. He didn't have an answer for her. His answer for Buffy didn't apply to the little sister, and it'd be cheating her out of her own place in his heart if he tried to use it on her, too.

"To be blunt," he started. "I didn't really see you rolling out the welcome mat for me."

"Buffy—"

"Not Buffy." He interrupted her. "I had a whole catalogue of reasons to keep myself hidden from her. All I had to do was turn the bloody page and point." He paused, watching her whole demeanor change and soften. "But you? You have this way of burning holes through my skin with your eyes, and I wasn't entirely up for it."

Dawn raised one eyebrow.

"You didn't tell me," She crossed her arms over her chest, and an amused, nearly mocking smile appeared over her face. "Because you didn't think I'd be happy about it?"

"Last time I'd come back from an extended stay elsewhere than your vicinity, you threatened to light me on fire."

Dawn's face changed again, amusement gone.

"That was different."

Spike didn't flinch or bat an eyelash. He knew it was different, knew _how_ it was different, but he had stopped torturing himself over that little bit of memory some time ago. He'd done far worse, and he'd done far better, and his past was filled to the brim with years of things to regret and ruminate over. But not that. Not anymore. Buffy had forgiven him, and what's more, he'd forgiven himself. Never even cast a metaphorical glance in that direction of memory lane anymore.

"Yeah." He said, tilting his head. "I suppose it was."

"You hurt her." She said, but her tone was not accusing. "But no one ever thought about how much that hurt me."

True. Certainly, he never did. She went on.

"They all constantly told me I couldn't trust you. They said 'hanging out with Spike is gross and icky'—"

"Hey—"

"—But I always trusted you. I believed you loved Buffy, and I believed you loved me, and then you hurt her and then you left. It all broke my heart. How was I supposed to act when you came back?"

"No different than you did." Spike said without hesitation, quietly absorbing the idea that he'd been anywhere near deep enough in Dawn's heart to even dent it, let alone break it. Also, if he was being honest with himself, and he always was these days, he figured that the rest of Buffy's pack probably hadn't even trusted him after he got the soul back. He disinterestedly recalled a plot to have him killed and copious amounts of time being chained to walls or tied to chairs.

They probably didn't trust him now. Not him or Angel.

Which, really, the two vampires would probably have to have a conversation about in the near future.

A beat.

"I hated you almost until the end." The girl who was getting older and less "niblet"-like every moment, said.

"Almost?"

"Almost." She repeated pointedly, not clarifying what she meant by it. Spike smiled.

"Fair enough."

**…**

"Hey…" Willow said suddenly, her eyes wide and her expression weighted by a look of burgeoning knowledge. The others looked over to her, but she kept her eyes on the words in her book.

"What is it, Will?" Buffy asked.

"A book." The redhead answered.

"Yeah." Xander responded, waving his book momentarily in the air. "We have them, too."

Willow looked up at him at that with a look of weary irritation that appeared to be all she could do not to roll her eyes.

"No," She said, handing her book off to Buffy. "This paragraph," she said as she pointed to a paragraph that looked more like a whole page to Buffy as she looked it over. "It talks about a book of nothing."

Buffy scanned the words.

Buffy couldn't read the words.

"They don't actually speak Latin in Italy anymore." The blonde said as she turned the book back over to her friend. The witch gave her a vaguely apologetic look and then pointed back to the paragraph.

"It says 'Nahil Scriptum'." She said, then looked at everyone who merely looked at her in return. "Well, literally translated it means 'nothing writing'… but the words are capitalized. It's the name of something."

"And you think that something is a book?" Buffy asked. Willow nodded.

"Yeah," She answered. "And I think it's about _the_ nothing."

"Not that I'm questioning your translating skills," Kennedy started. "But what makes you think that? I mean, a few sentences in a dusty old book and now—"

"We're sure there's another, albeit more important, dusty old book?" Xander interrupted.

Willow's eyes went back down to the page in front of her.

"Okay, so I'm not an expert in translation," She looked back up, her eyes knitted in a frown. "But I understand enough to know what this is saying."

"Well, great." Buffy said. "Where can we find this niquil script?"

"Nahil Scriptum." Willow corrected.

"Buffy's sounds good, too." Xander said. "I didn't sleep very well last night."

"It doesn't say where we can find it." Willow said, her eyes running over the words in front of her. "But this says that Nahil Scriptum speaks about 'nahil ad finem nahil'."

"What does it mean?" Buffy asked.

Willow paused rather dramatically for 8 o'clock in the morning.

"The nothing to end all nothing."

**…**

"I'm not surprised." Giles' voice came from the phone. "Dana's visions have all but confirmed what you're telling me now."

"We need to find this book, Giles. Ever heard of it?"

"I have heard of a book that talks about nothing, but I've never seen it and I have no clue as to where it can be found. To be quite honest, the idea of reading about nothing never quite piqued my interest."

Buffy took a deep breath.

"Typical." She said. "It's all we have to go on and, of course, we don't even have it."

"Give me some time." Giles responded. "If it really exists, I'll locate it."

Silence.

"Buffy, is everything all right?"

The girl paused before answering.

"Spike's alive." She answered, and the words almost seemed strange to her as she was not even completely aware she had been thinking about Spike.

"Yes, I know."

Those words were more strange.

"Know?" She asked. "You _know_? Is there another definition for 'know' that I've never heard, because—"

"I've known since Andrew came back from LA with Dana."

"_Andrew_ knew?" Buffy exclaimed. "Andrew knew and didn't tell me?"

"From what I understand, Spike had expressed a wish that you not be told."

Buffy was struck silent for a few moments.

"And you decided to suddenly start honoring his wishes?" She asked. "What is it with everyone loving Spike so much lately?"

"Quite frankly, it wasn't my business."

"Fine. It wasn't _your _business. It wasn't _his_ place." Buffy let out a short breath that was something of an annoyed and truncated laugh. "You know, I really wish someone would start telling me what this is, instead of what it isn't."

"Honestly, I should think there are other more pressing matters for your focus to lay at the moment. Spike being back—"

"_Means_ something." Buffy interrupted. "It could be bad just as much as it could be good. This shouldn't have been kept from me."

"You're right." Giles conceded a little abruptly. "We shouldn't have kept this from you, but now that you know, what are you going to do with the knowledge? Sit around and bemoan the fact that you hadn't known all along, or move forward and figure out how to use this to your advantage?"

"Spike's not a pawn on a chess board." Buffy responded, feeling something not unlike indignation.

"Maybe not." Giles agreed. "But you are right. Him being back does mean something."

A pause.

"I wish I knew what."

"I wouldn't devote too much of my energy to the question just now if I were you. I don't believe we have anything to suspect of Angel or Spike, at least for the time being. All signs indicate that they haven't lied to you…"

"I just…" She took a deep breath. "I brought them all here, Giles. My friends, my sister. Kennedy."

"If it's certainty you want, Buffy… I can't give you any. I can only say that I have, many times, marveled at the wisdom and foresight you have always seemed to possess that are very clearly beyond your years. If you felt that going to LA was the right course of action, I have no doubt that it was so."

Buffy closed her eyes and let her breath out, not having known that she was holding it. That was something Giles might have said to her when she was sixteen, but it had been a very long time since he had spoken to her that way. She briefly wondered if maybe now would be a good time to tell him about her dream.

"Giles…" She started, but did not go on.

"Yes?" The man asked.

If she told him now, he would only worry. It wasn't like her dream had given her any relevant insight in to what was happening to them now.

Not really.

Or maybe, and she couldn't deny this to herself, it was more important than she was willing to voice out loud.

"Nothing." She said. "Just let me know as soon as you find anything out about that book."

**…**

Xander found Willow looking out from a window in the back of the house. He walked slowly up to her so as not to startle her, and came to stand at her side.

"Home." She said quietly to her friend.

Xander nodded.

"Well, as much as anything could be home without resembling a large impact site."

Willow leaned her head up against the glass.

"Did you miss it?" She asked. Xander looked out as well and thought about his answer. Did he miss it? Well, not in the sense of ever wanting to go back… but in the sense of knowing he'd never be _able_ to go back, yeah, he guessed he did.

Mostly, he missed people. Not places.

"Did you?" He asked, deciding he didn't have an uncomplicated answer for her. She looked at him, and then toward the direction of the dining room where Kennedy still sat reading. Or maybe sleeping on top of a heap of books by now.

Willow looked back at Xander.

"I miss Tara." She answered, then returned her gaze to the expanse outside the window. Now, Xander had been quite aware of what had been between Willow and Tara. It had been as true a love as had ever been witnessed with his two eyes – when he still had two – and he never would have believed that Willow would stop thinking about the late witch… but he had not expected this answer from her at all. He said nothing.

"I only visited her once." Willow continued. "Then there was nothing to visit."

She had said this in a wistful, absent sort of way, but after the words had come, Xander could see out of the corner of his eye as she looked suddenly to him. He merely stared out from the window.

"Xander…" She said. "I'm sorry. I… I didn't—"

Xander didn't look at her.

"It's okay, Will." He said quietly, feeling the emotion rise in his throat. The fact that lay between them, which would not be mentioned aloud, was that he had never had the chance to visit Anya before "there was nothing left to visit". He'd never even seen her body.

"No, I'm all foot-in-the-mouthy…" She said in a voice laden with penitent sadness.

"I know I'm not the only one who's lost…" He trailed off, searching for the right words, but none would come. "Who's lost." He finished.

Willow said nothing else.

"I sense strong emotion." Came a cold voice from a few feet away.

The two friends turned toward the owner, startled.

"Is there something wrong?" It asked.

"What are you supposed to be?" Xander posed his own question, looking over the blue and crimson adorned woman who stood before them. She turned her head to him in an unnaturally jerky motion. Her ethereal blue eyes settled over his face.

"Do not address me as though you have the right." She nearly spat at him. "I am older than your written word."

Xander stared dumbfounded, then looked at Willow who was still, of course, staring at the strange woman.

"So, what are we thinking?" He asked his friend with a clasp of his hand. She looked at him, her eyebrows knit in a confused and worried frown. "Trap?"

**…**

Angel awoke to a loud crashing noise.

"What—"

It took him only a moment to register that he could no longer speak because Buffy had him pinned down by the neck, and that the crashing noise had been her kicking through his door.

"What are you playing at?" She asked him from behind clenched teeth.

The vampire pushed the slayer roughly off of him, and she flew across the room and against the wall. She was up the next instant, but so was he.

"What the hell is this?" He asked, his hand to his neck.

"Who is Old Blue Eyes downstairs?"

Angel looked suddenly very put out.

"What did you do to her?" He asked warily.

"Do?" She asked with an affected shrug. "Nothing that a couple days of unconsciousness wont heal."

"Dammit, Buffy!" He said, then almost immediately calmed. "She's on our side."

"And who's side is that?" She asked. "You ask me to come halfway around the world and don't bother to mention that you're harboring she-demons who have the habit of threatening to eviscerate men who 'dare address her'?"

Angel rubbed the bridge of his nose, then looked at Buffy.

"Her name's Illyria." He said. "She's the God who helped us fight Wolfram and Hart in the alleyway."

Buffy's stance immediately went from fight mode to relaxed, though her facial expression remained angry and mistrustful.

"Why didn't you tell me she had access to this house?"

"I honestly…" He sighed. "Didn't think about it."

Buffy laughed, a shallow and annoyed sound.

"Wow, you vampires are just full of things you don't feel the need to tell me."

"I would have told you."

"How can you expect me, or any of us, to trust you if you don't tell us everything."

"It's a little late for you to be voicing trust issues, don't you think?"

"Buffy…" Willow's voice came from the doorway. Buffy turned to her. The redhead held out her phone to her. "It's Giles."

Buffy gave Angel a long look before taking her phone and heading out in to the hallway.

**…**

"Give me some good news." Buffy said in to the device, Willow making her way back down to the others.

"I know where the book is." Came Giles' voice. Buffy felt a wave of relief flood through her.

"It's been almost three hours," She said with a satisfied smile. "You're losing your touch."

"It's the languid air of England." He responded, playing along for a moment. "The book is in California."

"And the good news keeps coming."

"But it's not readily accessible to the public."

"That's less good news." She said, slumping against the wall. "So, what are we talking? Full slayer arsenal?"

"Well, no." The English man said. "It's kept in a collection at the Huntington Library in Pasadena."

Buffy furrowed her forehead.

"Okay." She said. "I'll sign up for a library card, and problem solved."

"It's not that sort of library, I'm afraid. It's a museum. You'll need to apply for a reader's card with a mission statement and letters of recommendation."

"Letters of recommendation?"

"Well, the people who apply for these cards are usually writing books or studying for their doctorates."

"I'm really not either of those things."

"No, and I don't imagine the application process will be easy to fake."

"Your good news is starting to look suspiciously like bad news."

"We know where the book is," Giles started. "That is something."

Buffy took a deep breath.

"How did you find out?"

"I contacted a few colleagues of mine."

"Ah, the librarian grapevine."

"Yes, well, more or less, I suppose."

"We have to figure out how to get me in there." Buffy said, with a shake of her head.

"Who says it has to be you?" Spike asked from the other end of the hallway. Buffy eyed him dubiously.

"Who is that?" Giles asked.

"Giles, I'll call you back." She said, hanging up on her former watcher.

"You heard what we were talking about?" She asked Spike.

"Something about a book we need and letters of recommendation we apparently don't have." He tilted his head. "Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together."

"It's at The Huntington." Came Angel's voice from the doorway of his room.

"Yeah," Spike said. "Figured as much."

Buffy looked from one to other suspiciously and then held out her hands.

"Okay, wait." She said, shaking her head. "Putting aside the fact that you two pieced that together from literally nothing…" She visibly forced herself to assume a less defensive pose. "What makes you think you can get in there?"

"Vampire." The two dead men said in near unison. Buffy all but rolled her eyes, as she sauntered off down the hallway.

**…**

Angel made it to the parlour in time to see Xander stand up from having tied an incoherent looking Illyria to a wooden chair. He gestured angrily at the scene to Buffy who was standing against the far wall of the room.

"You tied her up?" He asked incredulously. Buffy shrugged.

"What can I say?" She asked. "That's what we do to demons who attack us."

"No," Xander corrected, turning his distrustful gaze fully on the vampire. "That's what we do to our friends who attack us. We usually just kill the demons. This one got lucky."

"She's not a— where did you get the rope?"

"Weapons chest." Buffy responded plainly.

Angel swept his hand over his face, and approached Buffy.

"She may not look like it," he started, gesturing back toward the blue god. "But she's got a lot of power, and she's not going to be happy about this when she wakes up."

"You told me she used all of her power to send the army of darkness back from whence they came."

"That was a month ago." Angel said as though speaking to someone less intelligent than himself. "By now she's recovered enough at least to the point of being able to incapacitate one or two of your friends."

"Hence the tying her up."

"You can't just go around tying up my friends." Angel protested.

"Dawn," Buffy said, peering past Angel to her sister who was just about to prod the tied up woman in question. "Don't poke at the god. Apparently she's good at incapacitating."

The slayer looked back at Angel.

"This isn't why I brought you here." Angel said with a clenched jaw. Buffy crossed her arms.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"For protection."

"What are you, The Godfather? I don't need your protection. I can take care of myself." Buffy said, and then tried to walk past him. He stepped in her way.

"No you can't." He said in a low voice. "Not against what's coming."

Buffy threw up her hands in frustration.

"I don't know what's coming!" She said. "For all I know you're playing for the other side again, and I am just the biggest idiot of the year for bringing everyone I care about here."

Angel looked suddenly and sincerely hurt.

"If that's what you think," he started. "Maybe you should just leave."

It took a few moments, but Buffy felt her anger recede and the hardness in her face melt away. She took a deep breath as she stared her ex-boyfriend in the eyes.

"No…" She said, conceding. "I… I didn't mean that. Look, I just—"

"No, it's good." Angel interrupted her. "You should question everything." He paused. "But you should also recognize when an old friend is trying to help you."

Buffy was still for a moment, and then she nodded. She was by no means completely convinced as to Angel or Spike's motives, but for now she would take Giles' advice and not worry about it. What she knew for sure was that they needed a book, and that the two vampires could help her get it. She also knew it wasn't safe for her to travel alone, that there was some sort of bounty on her head. Whether or not she was safer with them at her side remained to be seen, but she had very little choice in the matter.

"Okay." She said. "We'll need to get that book as soon as possible."

"How's tonight?"

"That's what I was hoping you would say."

Angel gave a short nod, and began to walk away, before turning briefly back to Buffy.

"My advice?" He said, glancing toward Illyria. "Tie her to a stronger chair. She's going to wake up angry."

**…**

Spike stood in his room, his hand outstretched toward the wooden boards over the window, though he didn't quite touch it.

"About an hour until sunset." Angel said, standing behind him. Spike didn't turn. "Ready for this?"

Spike laughed a little and inclined his head toward Angel but kept his body facing the window, dropping his hand to his side.

"Somehow I don't think nicking a book is going to be my finest or most daring hour."

"Oh, you never know, Spike." The brunette vampire said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "There's an army of vampires out there ready to take our heads off."

Spike turned to Angel.

"Noobies." He said on a sigh. "Refer to previous statement."

Angel laughed.

"What?" Spike asked, irritated.

"Working with Buffy again really has your cage rattled, doesn't it?"

Spike scoffed.

"Well, if it isn't Edward calling the diamond sparkly."

"Did you just make a twilight reference?"

"Well, if the poof fits—"

"All right, children." Buffy said from the doorway. The two men turned to her who held a weapon in each hand. "Time to gear up."

**…**

"Did she tell you?" Dana asked after Giles had walked in to his study. He turned suddenly toward the chair that sat in front of a very lit fireplace – one in which he did not light – to see Dana sitting and playing idly with the seam of her armrest.

"Dana, it's…" He looked at his wristwatch. "Three thirty in the morning."

"Did she tell you?" The girl repeated her question.

Giles began walking toward her slowly.

"Did you have another vision?"

"Did she tell you?" She asked again, neither the inflection nor the tone of her voice changing at all.

Giles sat in his usual chair across from her.

"Tell me what?" He asked in a low voice.

"That she's going to die."

Giles swallowed.

"No." He answered. "She doesn't believe there is anything to worry about, and I've learned to trust her judgement."

Dana continued to fiddle idly with the seam on the arm of her chair, seeming very distant from the conversation.

"Why?" She asked.

Giles had not been at all prepared for that question.

"She's proved herself—"

"She thinks with her heart no matter how hard she tries to think with her head. She's protecting someone."

Giles leaned forward, his previous words dead on his tongue.

"Protecting someone?" He asked. "Protecting whom?"

Dana looked up at him and smiled.

"The one that will kill her."

**…**

**TBC**


	4. Act IV: You Are What You Read

**Title:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer

**Author:** Blue Chance

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters, but they're not doing much these days so I didn't think anyone would mind if I played with them for a bit.

**Summary**: Post BtVS "Chosen" and AtS "Not Fade Away": They saved the world again and again, you'd think they'd be allowed to rest… you'd think. A new take on the mythical Buffy season 8.

**Author's Note: **Wow. It's been quite a while. This past year has been… well, let's just say life changing. I haven't really had time to work on this, but I've also really lacked the motivation. Recently, though, I've really hated the idea of just leaving it. I did have a lot of the story plotted out, and it was so much fun to write, so I finally decided to jump back in. It was a little slow going at first, but I'm excited about where this is headed. I hope this is a good first chapter to ease back in to the story with.

So… Here it is, after a more than a year; the next chapter of Buffy A Vampire Slayer.

…

**Buffy A Vampire Slayer**

**Season 8, Act IV**

"**You Are What You Read"**

…

**Pasadena, California**

Huntington Library

Buffy walked cautiously through the Huntington Gardens, her black hood pulled up over her head. Willow had done a quick cloaking spell, but the cameras still made the slayer nervous. The very last thing she needed right now was to be the lead in for news at 11.

"I'd call that a safe distance she's keeping from us, wouldn't you?" Spike asked, gesturing toward the slayer.

"She doesn't trust us." Was Angel's response.

"Can't say I blame her."

"No, but that doesn't make it helpful."

"She doesn't help us, we help her. Way it's always been." A beat. "I don't see why I had to get the frou-frou cherry wood stake." He mumbled under his breath.

"Are you kidding me? Wood's wood." Angel responded, unable and unwilling to hide the irritation in his voice after having spent an hour in the car with the bleached moron.

"Easy for you to say, Mr. _Mahogany_."

Angel rolled his eyes, and stopped to turn to Spike.

"Fine. You want to trade? Let's trade."

Spike kept walking, shrugging his shoulders stubbornly.

"No, forget it. Whatever."

Angel began walking once again, shaking his head. The two vampires continued along in silence for a few moments, before Angel took a deep breath.

"Not that I care, but what's bothering you?" He asked. Spike looked at him, confusion evident in his knit eyebrows. "I know this is more than cherry wood. Even you aren't that petty…" He paused, and Spike raised his forehead. "Maybe you are."

Spike looked away.

"Sod off." He said almost half heartedly.

"Suit yours—"

"It's just that," he interrupted, sparing a glance at Buffy to make sure she wasn't listening. "It's the bloody windows."

Angel cocked his head a bit.

"What are you talking about?"

"The windows. The great big, SPF 1000 windows. At Wolfram and Hart." A beat. "They gave something back to us for a little while."

Angel looked forward.

"They gave us an illusion. We were never more a part of that world when we could see than we are now in the dark."

"No, but… at least I could pretend to be a part of it."

That really was the difference between him and Spike. The younger vampire still held on to this world, when Angel knew he was a part from it always. He couldn't pretend, and he didn't even try.

"Hey, would you two chatty Cathies mind shutting up back there?" Came Buffy's harsh whisper. "Covert operation, remember?"

The two vampires looked sheepish.

"You got us in trouble." Angel grumbled at his blonde companion. Spike was too busy about to retort with some colorful words to notice that Buffy had stopped before he walked headlong in to her back. She stepped forward, her body barely registering what had happened.

"Buffy-" Spike started. Buffy held out her hand.

"Shhh." She said. Spike and Angel took their cue and became instantly more alert.

"I hear it, too." Angel said quietly.

"Someone's crying." Buffy spoke after a few moments.

After that, a few things happened in rather quick succession of one another. Buffy noticed the girl with the big black hood, and the big dark streaks of makeup running down her cheeks as though she'd been crying for hours, but was unfortunately only able to manage a widening of her eyes before a weird blast of white light filled the surrounding area. She found herself on her back and disoriented for a few moments before the light dissipated, and the crying had stopped.

"Wha… what the hell was that?" She asked, pushing herself up on to her elbows. Angel was doing the same thing about three feet away from her.

"Witch." He responded. Buffy groaned, closing her eyes for a moment as she sat up completely and pressed her hand up against her forehead.

"Buffy…" Angel said, a grave tone in his voice. Buffy took her hand down and looked at him, though realization hit her before he spoke his next words. "Spike's gone."

…

**Palos Verdes, California**

"It was a trap." Angel said with his head resting in his hands as he sat forward on an armchair in the sitting room. The others were scattered about the room as well, Buffy standing up against the far wall. Most eyes turned to her, except for Illyria who glared quietly at Xander from her chair.

"What would they want with Spike?" Willow asked.

Buffy didn't answer.

"Back up the question train a little bit there, Will." Xander said. "You say 'they' like we know who 'they' are. Who are 'they'?"

"Buffy," Dawn said, coming to stand next to her sister. "What if he's dead?"

Buffy looked her sister in the eyes.

"What if?" She asked in a sort of defeated tone with a sort of defeated half shrug, and half shake of her head.

"We're not just going to sit here and do nothing…" It could have been a question, but it wasn't.

Angel was looking up now at Buffy, too.

"You're right." Buffy responded to her sister, but was looking at the undead man sitting a few feet before her. "We got the book. We'll start there."

"Is it in Latin?" Willow asked.

Buffy let out a small and not amused puff of a laugh as she kneeled down to her feet and picked up the book. Standing up straight, she handed it over to the witch whose face turned in an immediate expression of confusion as she began to leaf through the pages. Kennedy leaned over to see what the problem was, and her face perfectly mimicked that of her girlfriend's.

"What is it?" Xander asked.

"It's…" Willow shook her head, then looked up at him. "The pages are blank."

"Blank?" Dawn asked as she and Xander gathered around Willow and the book.

"Blank." Buffy repeated.

"It's got to be magicked." Willow said.

"I'm not sure what we expected from the book of nothing." Buffy said, putting her head up against the wall.

"I'll work on it." Willow responded, leaving the group and heading toward the dining room. Kennedy and Xander followed, but Dawn went to stand in front of her sister again.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

"Dawn, I don't know how I feel about Spike being back, let alone how I feel about him being gone again."

"I mean, the nightmare? You didn't get a lot of sleep last night. You look tired."

Buffy looked at her sister.

"Oh." She said, then nodded after a moment. "No, yeah. I feel tired."

"Whatever it was that took Spike," Angel started, standing. "They knew we were going to be there, and they only wanted him."

"… So, what do they want with him?" Dawn asked.

Buffy took a deep breath, and didn't direct her response at anyone in particular.

"Choo choo goes the question train."

**…**

The lights came up, and all Spike could see was empty white spice. The only thing that alerted him to any sense of direction was gravity, and the fact that he could feel that he was on his back. He took a few moments, trying to stave off the disorientation, and stood slowly to his feet.

There was nothing. It looked like the room, if this was a room, went off forever in every direction, and it was all just bright white… emptiness.

"Oy," he said almost nervously, and then raising his voice, "Is this any way to treat your _guest_?" There wasn't much of an echo, which was… strange? Spike didn't know if that was strange or not.

"We have brought you here for one reason, and one reason only."

Never had the term "we" seemed to be so appropriate. It was as though a thousand voices had spoken the words at the same time, in perfect unison. Men, women, children… whispering, screaming, speaking normally. All of it, all at once.

Spike tilted his head back, closing his eyes. Mostly this was just frustrating.

"I'm guessing it's not for a quick afternoon tea, then?" He said nearly monotonously, and then brought his head back down.

"Would you like some tea?" It, they, asked. Spike furrowed his forehead, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed something. Turning slightly, he saw that there was suddenly a tray with tea and cookies on it.

"Okay, that's weird." He said after a moment.

"Or would you prefer something else?"

A moment later, there was a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around, startled, only to see a very pretty girl with a very pretty smile on her face, her head tilted as she offered her neck to him. He took a step back, shaking his head.

"No." He said.

"What about me?" One voice asked from behind him. One very familiar voice. He swallowed, and turned slowly to face the speaker.

"Buffy…" He said. She looked confused, but beautiful… wearing some strange uneven skirt with a tight sweater and a pair of brown boots. Not, he pointed out to himself, what she had been wearing when he just saw her not ten minutes before.

"Don't you want me?" She asked. It wasn't her, of course, and he knew it wasn't her, but it was a damn good copy. Time had been very unkind to him in regards to his feelings for her, and he just wasn't sure that he could resist even a fake Buffy that was offering herself to him.

"… You know… I do, Love." He said quietly, his dead heart seeming to constrict in his chest.

"I love you, Spike." Fake Buffy said.

Spike screwed his eyes shut tight.

"Make it go away." He said through clenched teeth. After a few long moments, Spike opened his eyes again to find that he was again alone in the great white expanse.

"Now." He said, shrugging his shoulders a few times to loosen his neck up a bit. "I'm pretty well done being tossed your balls of yarn, so I'm going to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer them. First, what the hell is this place, second, what the hell are you supposed to be, and three… why, _why_, the _hell_am I here?"

"You are here for one reason, and one reason only." The thing answered.

"Great. Right then. That answers exactly none of my questions."

"This place is not a place. We are everything, everyone, and every time. You are here for one reason, and one—"

"Reason only." Spike finished along with the voices, nodding and holding his hand up in a "yeah, I got it" gesture. "… You're not hearing me, are you?" He yelled. "What is the bloody _reason_?"

**…**

"Buffy!"

Buffy lay on her side on top of the blankets on "her" bed when she heard her name called. She sat up, and in the next second Dawn was at her doorway.

"Buffy, the book…" She said. "You need to see this."

**…**

Buffy walked in to the dining room where everyone had gathered, except for Illyria who was still tied up in the other room (though Buffy was beginning to wonder if it was because she wanted to be for some reason, as Angel had made it pretty clear that the woman had strength).

"What is it?" She asked as she moved toward Willow, who looked down at the book, at the far end of the table. In fact, they all looked down at the book.

"It's…" Willow turned it toward Buffy, whom it took only seconds to gain the same stricken look on her face as everyone else in the room.

"Spike?" She asked as her eyes scanned over the words.

_The lights came up, and all Spike could see was empty white spice. The only thing that alerted him to any sense of direction was gravity, and the fact that he could feel that he was on his back. He took a few moments, trying to stave off the disorientation, and stood slowly to his feet._

_There was nothing. It looked like the room, if this was a room, went off forever in every direction, and it was all just bright white… emptiness._  
><em>"Oy," he said almost nervously, and then raising his voice, "Is this any way to treat your guest?" There wasn't much of an echo, which was… strange? Spike didn't know if that was strange or not.<em>

_"We have brought you here for one reason, and one reason only."_

_Never had the term "we" seemed to be so appropriate. It was as though a thousand voices had spoken the words at the same time, in perfect unison. Men, women, children… whispering, screaming, speaking normally. All of it, all at once._

_Spike tilted his head back, closing his eyes. Mostly this was just frustrating._

_"I'm guessing it's not for a quick afternoon tea, then?" He said nearly monotonously, and then brought his head back down._

_"Would you like some tea?" It, they, asked. Spike furrowed his forehead, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed something. Turning slightly, he saw that there was suddenly a tray with tea and cookies on it._

_"Okay, that's weird." He said after a moment._

_"Or would you prefer something else?"_

_A moment later, there was a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around, startled, only to see a very pretty girl with a very pretty smile on her face, her head tilted as she offered her neck to him. He took a step back, shaking his head._

_"No." He said._

_"What about me?" One voice asked from behind him. One very familiar voice. He swallowed, and turned slowly to face the speaker._

_"Buffy…" He said. She looked confused, but beautiful… wearing some strange uneven skirt with a tight sweater and a pair of brown boots. Not, he pointed out to himself, what she had been wearing when he just saw her not ten minutes before._

_"Don't you want me?" She asked. It wasn't her, of course, and he knew it wasn't her, but it was a damn good copy. Time had been very unkind to him in regards to his feelings for her, and he just wasn't sure that he could resist even a fake Buffy that was offering herself to him._

_"… You know… I do, Love." He said quietly, his dead heart seeming to constrict in his chest._

_"I love you, Spike." Fake Buffy said._

_Spike screwed his eyes shut tight._

_"Make it go away." He said through clenched teeth. After a few long moments, Spike opened his eyes again to find that he was again alone in the great white expanse._

_"Now." He said, shrugging his shoulders a few times to loosen his neck up a bit. "I'm pretty well done being tossed your balls of yarn, so I'm going to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer them. One, what the hell is this place? Two, what the hell are you supposed to be, and three… why, why, the hell am I here?"_

_"You are here for one reason, and one reason only." The thing answered._

_"Great. Right then. That answers exactly none of my questions."_

_"This place is not a place. We are everything, everyone, and every time. You are here for one reason, and one—"_

_"Reason only." Spike finished along with the voices, nodding and holding his hand up in a "yeah, I got it" gesture. "… You're not hearing me, are you?" He yelled. "What is the bloody reason?"_

"Will… what the hell is this?" Buffy asked. Willow shook her head and took the book back.

"I don't know. The book was empty, and then all of the sudden this… it's just writing itself. I don't know what it is, or what it means, but I think…" She trailed off. Buffy looked at her.

"What?"

Willow took a deep breath.  
>"I think… that that wherever Spike is, that this is happening to him, and I think it's happening to him right now."<p>

**…**

"We cannot tell you the reason." The voice answered after several minutes' silence. Spike was now sitting on the backs of his legs, keeping his eyes closed as much as possible. The white, the empty space, it was somehow just as bad as being in a dark room with no light, and it was certainly enough to make a grown man dizzy after a while.

"And why is that, mates?"

"Because they have our book, and it's not time for them to know yet."

"Book?" Spike asked.

**…**

"Whoa…" Willow said.

"Okay, that's creepy." Dawn started. "Anyone else vote for creepy?"

The room was still for a moment before Xander slowly raised his hand.

"It is happening right now." Angel said.

"But why is it written like that?" Kennedy asked. "It's so weird, it's like…"

"Like a story." Willow finished.

Buffy said nothing.

**…**

"Yes. Our book. The book you were searching for before we extracted you."

Spike blinked.

"Okay, I'll get to this 'extracted' business in a minute, but who's they? You said they have the book. "

A long pause.

"From what we understand, they are your friends."

"Uh… huh. And what does this book say? Why can't you tell me why I'm here?"

"Because they are reading this as we speak."

"Oooooh." Spike let out, suddenly a bit more annoyed than he was a moment before. "Isn't that just _perfect_." He looked around, and put his hands around his mouth to amplify the sound. "Hello out there! Wish you were here!"

"Spike, there is one very important thing that you must understand." The voice said ominously.

"Oh yeah? Like the fact that I'm inside a sodding book? I got it, thanks."

"No, Spike." The voice seemed to warn him without saying much at all. He stood still and listened. "You must understand that your friends cannot help you."

**…**

"Will…" Buffy said worriedly. "What kind of magic is this?"

Willow had no answer.

**…**

"And am I in need of help?" Spike asked, chewing on the inside of his lower lip.

"That is irrelevant. They cannot help you. What happens now has always been meant to happen. What is written in our book cannot be unwritten."

Spike's face hardened.

"I don't respond well to cryptic."

"Also irrelevant."

Spike looked around uselessly once more, and then let out a couple puffs of air that were sort of like a laugh. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face.

"You know what I think?" He asked. "I think you're using me to send a message. Well, what happens if I do… for example… this?—"

**…**

The words abruptly stopped appearing on the page. The collective breath of the room was held for a few moments.

"What's happening?" Dawn asked.

Buffy frantically flipped through the pages.

"He stopped it." She answered.

"Yeah, but how?" Angel asked warily.

Buffy grabbed the book and snapped it shut.

"Willow, I need you to come with me." She said.

"… Where are we going?" The redhead asked.

Buffy bit down before answering.

"We're going on a witch hunt."

**TBC**


End file.
